Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Sun 01/15/2006 View Sat 01/14/2006 View Fri 01/13/2006 View Thu 01/12/2006 View Wed 01/11/2006 View Tue 01/10/2006 View Mon 01/09/2006
1
2006-01-15 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Assembles 5,000 Centrifuges For Nukes
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by Fred 2006-01-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11132 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 How large are these centrifuges?
Posted by 6 2006-01-15 06:34||   2006-01-15 06:34|| Front Page Top

#2 nano
Posted by RD 2006-01-15 09:37||   2006-01-15 09:37|| Front Page Top

#3 1 meter wide and 2 meters tall. With proper cooling, a lot can be packed into a small space.
Posted by ed 2006-01-15 09:42||   2006-01-15 09:42|| Front Page Top

#4 Fortunately, it does not take much of a blast to knock a high-speed centrifuge out of balance and alignment and to damage its bearings and electrical supply.
Posted by Darrell 2006-01-15 10:46||   2006-01-15 10:46|| Front Page Top

#5 Here are the details...
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/natanz03_02.html
Posted by Darrell 2006-01-15 10:52||   2006-01-15 10:52|| Front Page Top

#6 I wonder if the sub-stations are underground? Attacking the centrifuges themselves sounds like a Scheweinfurt-like exercise - a panacea target.

/A Harris
Posted by 6 2006-01-15 10:53||   2006-01-15 10:53|| Front Page Top

#7 A clickable link to #5's contribution
It mentions the energy consumption of each centrifuge is low, but how much juice do 5,000 consume? I recall from the Manhattan project that the Washington and Oak Ridge sites produced the basic nuclear materials for the 1st nuclear weapons, and both needed massive amounts of electricity for their work. I suspect the biggest vulnerability of nuclear production is the need to supply electricity & dissipate excess heat, things that are hard to do underground.
Posted by Flerert Whese8274 2006-01-15 11:01||   2006-01-15 11:01|| Front Page Top

#8 So what if they can't build a 20 megaton warhead.
Even a 30 kiloton (like the one used on Hiroshima) is a fairly bad thing for those nuts to have. If they are running 5100 centifuges, it just means they will need more time. Or they will have to go with a smaller yield warhead. Hell, a 5 kiloton bomb would be a big-ass bomb to be going off over Tel Aviv.
Posted by bigjim-ky 2006-01-15 11:52||   2006-01-15 11:52|| Front Page Top

#9 I read each centrifuge is comsumes about 40 watts. When Natanz is fully operational (50,000 centrifuges), it's supposed to produce enough HEU for a bomb every 10-15 days. But the kicker is that centrifugue cascades can be put anywhere with a reliable power supply, with tunnels under cities being ideal.
Posted by ed 2006-01-15 12:09||   2006-01-15 12:09|| Front Page Top

#10 The longer we wait for a strike, the more fissile product they acquire. They have undoubtedly put the critical infrastructure underground, so support infrastructure is the critical node.

It also seems to me that sabotage of their cash cow is a legitamete goal, like oil pumping stations, oil loading infrastructure, major substations. Oil pumping gear and large transformers are not off-the-shelf items to buy, so they have multiplier effects when down and out. Pipeline control systems can be *ahem* tweaked or fried. If the MMs want to create nukes and meddle with their neighbors in Iraq, they need to understand that their is a price to be paid. They are going through cash like Jack the Pig. They need to get pinched on the cash flow.
Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul  2006-01-15 13:12||   2006-01-15 13:12|| Front Page Top

#11 Jack the Pig? lol AP - that's a new one for me
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2006-01-15 13:19||   2006-01-15 13:19|| Front Page Top

#12 What's the resonate frequency of one of these centrifuges?

If its low enough to travel through the earth aways it should both be possible to locate and to overdrive with lots of transducers.

If its higher you should be able to locate with some other techniques...
Posted by 3dc 2006-01-15 13:41||   2006-01-15 13:41|| Front Page Top

#13 btw not just sound..
there might be some EM resonate freqs...
Posted by 3dc 2006-01-15 13:42||   2006-01-15 13:42|| Front Page Top

#14 Sounds like a job for us!
Posted by Halliburton Earthquate and Resonance Division 2006-01-15 14:06||   2006-01-15 14:06|| Front Page Top

#15 Dear Mr. 3dc,

Our interest was "sparked" by your recent comments regarding the possibility of indirectly ... affecting ... Iranian centrifuges.

It "sounds" like we're on the same "wavelength". Please contact us at your convenience to discuss potential technical cooperation between our teams.

Yours,

HE&RD
Posted by Halliburton Earthquake & Resonance Division 2006-01-15 14:09||   2006-01-15 14:09|| Front Page Top

#16 40 watts/a stage?

Not 4 KW?
Posted by 6 2006-01-15 14:21||   2006-01-15 14:21|| Front Page Top

#17 low end of a 3way bulb? I'm inclined to agree with Mr6
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2006-01-15 14:24||   2006-01-15 14:24|| Front Page Top

#18 Exactly 746 watts of electrical power will produce 1 HP if a motor could operate at 100% efficiency, but of course no motor is 100% efficient. A 1 HP motor operating at 84% efficiency will have a total watt consumption of 888 watts. This amounts to 746 watts of usable power and 142 watts loss due to heat, friction, etc. (888 x .84 = 746 = 1 HP).

Source

I think the key is how many RPMs they have to spin at. I recall it being very high.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-01-15 14:33||   2006-01-15 14:33|| Front Page Top

#19 Go after their source of income. Play the game they are supporting in Iraq.
Posted by Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2006-01-15 15:16||   2006-01-15 15:16|| Front Page Top

#20 Basically thrust, counter thrust and knock them off balance: go on the offensive - standing on defense will be the same as what the west did against Hitler when they let him retake the Ruhr and the Sudeten. We are only enabling a larger war in fear of the carnage the sooner and smaller one would cause.


The first weakness is the pwoer infrastructure needed to run the centrifuges. You cannot do that and hide it easily in athe absence of other infrastructure elements. Power lines, generation, and the heat involved cna stand out if you reduce the background noise.

This is why knocking out the power across Iran is a neccesity as the first OVERT military action. Its the first and foremost action we can take, other than direct action against the sites like Natanz.

The first overt actions should be against Natanz and any other site that would be hosting the centrifuges.

A possible plan of attack would be as follows:

The subsurface elements would all be attacked with burrowing FAE and HE bombs, and surface buildings a wave of fuel-air explosives. The second wave would be HE on the main above-ground "hard" targets 10 minutes after the FAE and penetrators go in. This woudl be followed by a final wave of FAE to complete the collapse of any buildings left from the initial stages - about 30 minuntes (to allow fires to damp down so the FAE will ignite properly. The final leg of the attack woudl follow 10-15 minutes later: the laying of air-delevered anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines.

The overpressures will destroy most of the structures above ground, and the penetrators combined with FAE will destroy or collapse anything in the bunkers. And the minefields will cause casualties against anyone trying to reach the wreckage, and slow any recovery/rebuilding efforts on the site.

Ask the Taliban about those things and their effects on the CIA cave based bunkers - and the Chechens about the Russian version of these on their buildings.

The reurcussions:

If civilians starve and die at the hands of thier own government as a result of the loss of their power infrastructure, then thats the price they pay for not throwing the bastards out, like the Germans in WW2.

How to prep for the strike?

1) Leaflet the population - let them know that we CAN and WILL reach out and touch them, and for them to prepare to either rid themselves of the nuclear madmen, or be ready to lose thier electricity for years. And remind them that they are lucky its a leaflet and not high explosive - and that the next response will not be nearly as benign.

2) Concurrently with #1, tell the Kurds and coastal arabs we are willing to supply them and back them covertly in any miitary action they wish to take in northern & coastal Iran - and in Turkey too if the Turks don't step up to the plate.

3) Start covert infiltration in much greater force than now, from Aghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Set up covert cells, prepare for guerila and special operations support.

Once 1-3 are done, then setp 4 hits:

4) Start interuptions to the power infrastructure with indigenous forces. Transmission line towers, transformer stations and substations, and control centers are wonderful targets - and are almost as effective as taking out the generation capacity. We've been on the recieving end of this in Iraq, time to be on the giving end in Iran.

5) Start assassinations of political & military leaders (from the bottom up) in Iran that are hostile - teach the political class (Mullahs and thier supporters) that there is a blood price to pay, and the bill has come due. IEDs work as well as sniper rounds for this. Another case of "sauce for the goose...". Lets see if Iran can deal wiht the same things its been dishing out - I bet it cannot. Use indigenous forces backed by special operations capacity to do this work - there are plenty in Iran with inclinations to do so, and wiuth training and logistic support they cna be very effective in doing so.

The above will turn Irna into a true quamire much worse than Iraq ever was, with the Mullahs and theri totalitarian henchment on the recieving end - and one important difference: they will not have recourse to a vote by the populace to reduce hoistility like we did in Iraq. They can only crack down harder which will motivate forces against them even further.


Over-all effect:

Kepe them that busy, with the above, and if they still continue thier nuclear activity, then we strike hard with anti-nuclear straieksa gainst their facilities and command centers.

Then add in cruise missles, air strikes and spec ops raids in a hammer blow agains the political infratructure. We can fell the government and halt the nuclear threat they present to the region. Likelyh will result in chaos and anarchy in Iran, wich is regrettable but preferrable to the evil that controls the nation now.

The aftermath would be very messy: we should basically wall them off: mine and shut the borders of Iran and embargo the coasts ecept for humanitarian aid, and let them figure it out on their own how many mullahs to hang from the lamposts.

Tell the Euros: you can do all the rebuilding and get all the oil - as long as you send your own troops to enforce the rules. We are sitting this one out, rebuilding Iraq into the central power int he region as a stable democratic republic,a nd ridding it of its primary source of overt evil are our gifts to the region. The Euros will ahve to do the rest of the work themselves.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-01-15 16:08||   2006-01-15 16:08|| Front Page Top

#21 Here's the actual deal on how much juice a seperation plant requires:

The capacity of enrichment plants is measured in terms of 'separative work units' or SWU. The SWU is a complex unit which is a function of the amount of uranium processed and the degree to which it is enriched (ie the extent of increase in the concen-tration of the U-235 isotope relative to the remainder) and the level of depletion of the remainder. The unit is strictly: Kilogram Separative Work Unit, and it measures the quantity of separat-ive work performed to enrich a given amount of uranium a certain amount. It is thus indicative of energy used in enrichment when feed and product quantities are expressed in kilograms. The unit 'tonnes SWU' is also used.

For instance, to produce one kilogram of uranium enriched to 3% U-235 requires 3.8 SWU if the plant is operated at a tails assay 0.25%, or 5.0 SWU if the tails assay is 0.15% (thereby requiring only 5.1 kg instead of 6.0 kg of natural U feed).

About 100-120,000 SWU is required to enrich the annual fuel loading for a typical 1000 MWe light water reactor. Enrichment costs are substantially related to electrical energy used. The gaseous diffusion process consumes about 2500 kWh (9000 MJ) per SWU, while modern gas centrifuge plants require only about 50 kWh (180 MJ) per SWU.

So assuming that the number of SWU/Kg remains constant for each percentage point of enrichment (prolly not a good assumption, but good enough for a back of the envelope calc) and that you need 95% enrichment and 11 Kg of enriched uranium for a bomb (I think that there is a misdirection factor built into both of these publically available numbers, but again, good enough for what I'm trying to accomplish) then I get a minimum of 66,183 KWH per bomb. 1 kilowatt-hour is what you expend when you light ten 100 watt bulbs for an hour.

You don't have to have a real powerful motor to spin up to real high rpms, just a real good transmission. I'm assuming some sort of magnetic clutch. Once again, we are in the world of design tradeoffs. I can spin up a small mass fairly quickly, but it'll take me a long time to make a bomb. Another big factor is how long it takes to load and unload. I'm pretty sure that these babies are spinning in an evacuated chamber. If you can come up with some way to load and unload without breaking your vacuum, then you can speed up things immensely.
Posted by 11A5S 2006-01-15 16:34||   2006-01-15 16:34|| Front Page Top

#22 That's a pretty good plan OS, reemphasizing your point that you have to take out the _entire_ power infrastructure, otherwise they just starve the people and keep building bombs.

I also like the idea of turning the minorities and isolating the Iranian core. I was thinking the other day that's exactly what we should have done in Iraq: liberated the Shia and Kurd areas and stayed out of the Sunni triangle. With no oil, Saddam could have been the landlocked dictator of a bunch of psychotic Arabs with no income to pay them or the Mukhabarat. That would have been fun to watch.

All in all an excellent post.
Posted by 11A5S 2006-01-15 16:43||   2006-01-15 16:43|| Front Page Top

#23 nice plan OS...I like it
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2006-01-15 16:45||   2006-01-15 16:45|| Front Page Top

#24 If we can get the State Department appeasers and ass-coverers at CIA out of the way, get solid operational intelligence on the sites, and strategic intel on the weaknesses in the command structure, and HUMINT on the political structure and its pressure points....

Then we should be able to act deciseivly. But we need to act as soon as things are in place - possibly within as soon as 6 months,, probably no more than by mid-November. If we do not tee this up now (steps 1-3) along-side the current diplomacy, and hit it before the Iranians develop and deploy a weapon, this its all for naught - and we will be facing the "War in 2007" scenario that is the subject of another post here - the world economy disrupted, 10s of millions dead in Iran, several million in Israel, and the entire world in turmoil.

But the force must be deleiverd fully and in a sharp blow, not "oozed in" over time. Its akin to Napolean having Ney wander all over the place instead of committing hard and fast early in the battle when that force could have been decisive.

Political will is what it takes. And I don't kow that our current crop of traitors and self-centered powermongers (Howard Dean, Kennedy, Pelosi, Murtha, the French, et al) can allow us enoiugh freedom of aciton to act and do what we need to do to promote liberty and protect the republic.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-01-15 16:58||   2006-01-15 16:58|| Front Page Top

#25 OS, I think you're right about involving the minorities and opposition in early takedowns of visible power infrastructure. I would add, probably communications centers too as they would have backup generation of their own I assume.

Ask the Taliban about those things and their effects on the CIA cave based bunkers Just a typo and you meant the other way around - i.e. ask the CIA paramilitaries about the effects that we imposed on the Taliban? Or did I misunderstand?
Posted by lotp 2006-01-15 17:33||   2006-01-15 17:33|| Front Page Top

#26 alternate plan

make sure they have a design for a centrifuge that has defects at RPMs above 50k or so

or

bribe several centrifuge operators whose cousin's kids have been jailed by the mullahs to make sure the voltage is unstable

or

make sure the mullah supervisor of centrifuges requires the operators to pray at critical hours when they should be monitoring the operation
Posted by mhw 2006-01-15 18:38||   2006-01-15 18:38|| Front Page Top

#27 OS

I was hoping we would start doing as you suggest
at least eighteen months ago.

To my mind, this was one of the key benefits/purposes of our presence in Iraq.

I hope we haven't left it too long.
Posted by dushan 2006-01-15 19:30||   2006-01-15 19:30|| Front Page Top

00:33 C-Low
23:49 49 Pan
23:38 Fred
23:36 macofromoc
23:35 49 Pan
23:34 2b
23:32 Cheper Unavise7761
23:30 49 Pan
22:52 trailing wife
22:47 2b
22:46 Skidmark
22:42 trailing wife
22:37  Anonymoose
22:19 ed
22:15 Penguin
22:10 ed
21:56 ed
21:54 bigjim-ky
21:54 wxjames
21:47 ed
21:41 Pappy
21:40 wxjames
21:40 Rafael
21:37 DMFD









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com