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Iran to build several nuclear 'research' reactors
Iran will continue enriching uranium to 20 percent level to fuel "four to five" nuclear research reactors it intends to build in the "next few years," a top official told the ISNA news agency on Monday.
So as to research, you know, plutonium...
"In the next few years, four to five (research) reactors... of 10 to 20 megawatts will be built" in the country, the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation Fereydoon Abbasi Davani was quoted as saying.

"Thus we need to continue enrichment to 20 percent in order to provide them with fuel," added Abbasi Davani, who was appointed to the post in February.

The Islamic republic is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

"Enrichment up to 20 percent will continue and will not halt. We will increase the volume of the 20 percent enrichment based on the country's needs. For this, we will not ask for permission from anyone," Abbasi Davani said.

The aim of the new reactors is "to produce radio isotopes, and (to enable) research and development," he said.
Development of fission bombs, for example...
These reactors "will be built in different provinces," he said, without elaborating, but adding that building the first "will take three to four years."
Long enough time line that a pro-active American government could do something about it.
Iran announced in June last year it intended to build a "number" of research reactors aimed at producing radio isotopes for "sale and export to the regional and Islamic countries that need them."
So that all Islamic countries could have plutonium for research purposes...
Officials have repeatedly said that Iran would produce the nuclear fuel required for a research reactor in Tehran by September 2011.

Western powers have repeatedly said Iran does not possess the technology to make the actual nuclear fuel plates required to power the Tehran research reactor which makes medical isotopes.
But the Russians do...

Posted by: Steve White 2011-04-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=320175