Article

2006-04-12 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days

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Posted by Steve 2006-04-12 13:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 If all top Iranian officials do this.....

Then we are safe from the next generation!

rd

Posted by red 2006-04-12 13:24|| 2006-04-12 13:24|| Front Page Top

#2 I know its been said before and often, but the chants and photos from today's Iranian nuclean celebration party - replete with heavy religious overtones - looks/sounds like its right out of "Beneath the Planet of the Apes!" Let's hope for a different ending...

Posted by borgboy 2006-04-12 13:41|| 2006-04-12 13:41|| Front Page Top

#3 rd, this is gonna get confusing.

Posted by RD 2006-04-12 13:41|| 2006-04-12 13:41|| Front Page Top

#4 You gotta build 50000 centrifuges first....

Posted by john 2006-04-12 14:37|| 2006-04-12 14:37|| Front Page Top

#5 for a 1,000-megawat nuclear power plant similar to the one Russia is finishing in southern Iran

Just a friendly reminder: don't forget to encase the reactors in heavy steel and concrete. Look up Chernobyl if you want to know why.

Posted by Whuque Elmeans3280 2006-04-12 14:50|| 2006-04-12 14:50|| Front Page Top

#6 What gets me is the false axiom that for some reason, Iran has to start with crude ore and refine it all the way to nuclear grade material.

Hasn't it crossed anyone's mind that at some point, any of the other following things could have happened?

1) They bought already-enriched uranium, and want to start up a nuclear plant just to bombard the good stuff with neutrons and create plutonium. So once that plant is online, it will start producing plutonium quickly.

2) They bought semi-enriched uranium that needs far fewer centrifuges and processing to become weapons grade than crude ore.

The bottom line here is that either of these situations could give them a bomb doing exactly what they are doing right now, and much faster than projected. The illusion is that they had to begin from scratch.

If that is not the case, then Iran could have the bomb in short order.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-04-12 15:59|| 2006-04-12 15:59|| Front Page Top

#7 Iran has a small PUREX plant at Tehran Nuclear Complex. It can produce 600 grams of Plutonium a year.

The only reactor in Iran that can produce Plutonium is running at high burnup and under IAEA inspections. It is tiny - 5 MW and will produce less than half a kilogram of Pu per year.

Iran can't hide a plutonium production reactor (large IR signature) , nor can it effectively hide additional Pu reprocessing plants - the presence of Krypton 85 gas in the atmosphere would be a dead giveaway.

It also doesn't have the spent fuel - you need about 1 ton of spent fuel (at low burnup) to produce 1 kilogram of Pu.

Posted by john 2006-04-12 16:28|| 2006-04-12 16:28|| Front Page Top

#8 According to Richard Gawin
Three years of 1,300 centrifuges
operating at 3 SWU per year would provide 11,700 SWU. The above 13,920 SWU
requirement would thus take 3.57 years (or 13,920 divided by 11,700 multiplied by 3), or 3
years, if each of the 1,300 centrifuges can deliver 3.56 SWU per year. If one assumes that an
implosion-type weapon uses 20 kg of HEU, then 1,300 centrifuges could produce the
requisite HEU in about 14 months.
A centrifuge's power consumption is something like 100 kilowatt-hours per
SWU (about $5 of the $100 price of a commercial SWU). Thus a machine producing 3 SWU
per year consumes 300 kWh over a period of 8,766 hours, for an installed power of about 35
watts. This is less than that used by a 40-watt light bulb, and something like that required for
a small desk fan. A park of 1,300 centrifuges needs 45 kWh, less power than a small car.
There are many small computer centers that demand uninterrupted power, and commercial
suppliers sell such systems w

Posted by john 2006-04-12 16:33|| 2006-04-12 16:33|| Front Page Top

#9 It looks like the Pakistan way--- HEU.
The Chinese design provided by AQ Khan used HEU.

Posted by john 2006-04-12 16:34|| 2006-04-12 16:34|| Front Page Top

#10 More from Richard Garwin...

The performance of a gas centrifuge is measured by its yield of separative work units (SWU). Each of the centrifuges used in Pakistan or in the European enrichment enterprise, Urenco, may be assumed to produce about 3 SWU per year. The commercial nuclear-fuel market values an SWU at about $100. Technically, the number of SWU that would normally be used to produce a kilogram of U-235 as HEU (about 1.05 kg of HEU) is 232 SWU. The number of SWU that must be invested to make 1 kg of U-235 as LEU (in 22.7 kg of LEU) is about 151 SWU. In both cases one is assumed to start from natural uranium (0.711 percent U-235) and discard depleted uranium with 0.25 percent U-235. If one assumes a Urenco centrifuge with a capacity of 3 SWU per year, then the production of LEU containing one metric ton of U-235--enough to replenish for a year a single large reactor producing a million kilowatts of electrical power (the standard-size reactor such as was being built by KEDO in North Korea)--would require 1,000 kg times 151 SWU/kg, or 151,000 SWU. At 3 SWU per year per centrifuge, this would require 151,000 divided by 3, or slightly more than 50,000 centrifuges working for a year. And the next year the plant's output would supply the following year's replacement fuel, and so on.

Posted by john 2006-04-12 16:41|| 2006-04-12 16:41|| Front Page Top

#11 H. Blix said 5 years, and he's bound to be right some day, maybe. After all, an expert is anyone from out of town.

Posted by Inspector Clueso 2006-04-12 17:51|| 2006-04-12 17:51|| Front Page Top

#12 Excellent numbers, john, assuming they're true. From the low productivity factors, they certainly do look accurate. Thank you for a factual breakdown of what it takes. Sadly, as 'moose pointed out, there are "end run" strategies that render the time factors irrelevant. All the more reason to bomb Iran immediately.

Posted by Zenster 2006-04-12 19:53|| 2006-04-12 19:53|| Front Page Top

#13 They just discussed a bomb Iran scenario on FoxNews with a target count and all..

Problem is... None of the target were Rafsanjani's properties.
Ranburg discussion on March 1st about Rafsanjani's worth
At the top slot comes, unsurprisingly to Iran observers, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose family rules over a vast financial and business empire. From the pistachio farms of his hometown Rafsanjan to huge oil trading companies, the ruling theocracys former president has used his power and influence to expand his wealth. Conservative estimates put his fortune at well beyond the 10 trillion Rial mark, the equivalent of $1.1 billion.

Most of the powerful clerics enormous wealth is vested in the hands of his sons and daughters, as well as other close relatives such as his brothers, nephews, and bother-in-laws, and son-in-laws. One of his villas was sold in 2004 for roughly 29 billion Rials. His brother, Mohammad Hashemi, the former chief of the state broadcasting corporation, owns the company Taha, which imports industrial-scale printers.

Note the sleazy Ayatollah's in that article and the Military and BUSH should make DAMN SURE that those assets are on any first strike target list.

That will destroy the Mullah's pocketbooks and make it hurt for them not only the public and the military.

Hurt the actual preachers and enablers of hate.

Posted by 3dc 2006-04-12 21:04|| 2006-04-12 21:04|| Front Page Top

#14 A little HEU, or a lot of lesser-enriched uranium can achieve critical mass - you just gotta ram 'em together. Oppenheimer & Co, didn't even test the HEU bomb (Little Man? The cylindrical one) - they dropped it and it went off. The Plutonium bomb was more complicated, but (IIRC) more efficient (Fat Boy?)

More than one way to skin a cat.

Or a Mullah.

Posted by Bobby 2006-04-12 21:35|| 2006-04-12 21:35|| Front Page Top

#15 You need 60 kg of HEU for a gun type weapon and 20 kg of HEU for an unsophisticated implosion type weapon.

LEU won't do.

Posted by john 2006-04-12 21:40|| 2006-04-12 21:40|| Front Page Top

#16 Some bloggers on FREE REPUBLIC.com and other sites are arguing that Iran may already have 5-10 or 20 bombs, and that MadMoud is playing mind games wid the West in order to disguise that fact that Iran already has nukes. Meanwhile, REGIME CHANGE IRAN reports that iff Iran continues on its current path MILITARY ACTION AGAINST IRAN IS VERY LIKELY IN 2007 - looks like Hillary, the Dems, and the MSM/Hollyweird may get their "WE SAVED THE WORLD AND AMERICA FROM DUBYA AND USA/GOP/FASCIST-CAUSED NUKE BRINKMANSHIP-WAR" 2008 elex promo after all, and whether they truly want it or not.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-04-12 23:15|| 2006-04-12 23:15|| Front Page Top

#17 Bombs from where?

Posted by john 2006-04-12 23:29|| 2006-04-12 23:29|| Front Page Top

#18 The real world isn't like hollywood.

Physics undergraduates can't build atomic bombs and countries with nuclear arms don't sell them. They are heavily guarded; no terrorist can steal one or buy one.

Posted by john 2006-04-12 23:43|| 2006-04-12 23:43|| Front Page Top

10:47 IMRAM
00:16 JosephMendiola
23:59 Frank G
23:59 2b
23:58 Frank G
23:50 2b
23:48 john
23:47 JosephMendiola
23:43 john
23:42 DMFD
23:39 john
23:36 DMFD
23:34 JosephMendiola
23:30 djohn66
23:29 boycottViacom
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23:25 JosephMendiola
23:17 DMFD
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23:15 Clasing Greremble8635
23:13 Phaique Unoting6677
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22:41 Ernest Brown
22:41 Captain America