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Problems slow down Iran's nukes
A series of technical problems at the central Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz appear to have slowed down its nuclear fuel-enrichment program and put on hold plans to expand it, it was reported on Tuesday.In April, Iran succeeded in operating a cascade of 164 centrifuges, an amount sufficient to fuel nuclear power plants, but far short of the threshold of several thousand needed to build a nuclear bomb. A second round of feeding uranium into centrifuge enrichment machines began on June 6. According to one diplomat, several unconfirmed reports state that the first cascade, basis for Iranian plans to install 3,000 centrifuges by 2007, had a failure rate of up to 50 percent, Channel 2 reported. He said the centrifuges seemed to be showing fragility after being spun at supersonic speeds, and the nature of materials injected into them - which could involve impurities in the uranium - could be damaging too. Posted by: ed 2006-07-12 |
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