Iran starts enrichment at Natanz site, IAEA confirms

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran has assembled some 1,300 centrifuges at a key underground nuclear plant and has started to feed them with the uranium gas necessary for enriching uranium, the UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday.

Iran has eight cascades of 164 centrifuges each at a heavily-bunkered underground facility in Natanz and "some UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) is being fed," a diplomat said.

The diplomat was quoting to AFP a confidential document the International Atomic Energy Agency sent Wednesday to the 35 member states of its board of governors.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070418/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpolitics_070418182439

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VIENNA, Austria - Iran has started enriching small amounts of uranium gas at its underground nuclear plant and is running more than 1,300 of the centrifuges used in the process, according to a U.N. nuclear watchdog document obtained Wednesday.

The confidential document — a letter to Iranian officials from a senior staff member at the International Atomic Energy Agency — also protests an Iranian decision to prevent agency inspectors from visiting the country's heavy water facility that, when built, will produce plutonium.

Enriched uranium and plutonium can both be used for the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The letter, signed by IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen and dated April 18, said Iran has provided information to the agency that it has put into operation 1,312 centrifuges — the machines used to spin the gas into enriched uranium.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_re_eu/nuclear_iran_1

[acmavm]

1. Is that bomber jet engines I hear in the distance?

[maddezmom]

2. at least Gates was saying earlier that diplomacy is working with Iran

hopefully when he said it, he was aware of this document.

[Grandrose]

3. Oh! Boy!

Are those 3 aircraft carriers still in the middle east? Here we go folks, I sincerely hope I am wrong! Just what Bush/Rove need to change the subject from Gonzales and other possible scandals. :scared:

[leveymg]

4. With 1,312 P-1 centrifuges, it would take Iran about 9 years

to produce enough Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) to make one bomb.

Don't panic, folks. This isn't the eve of destruction, as Gates and the rest of the Pentagon knows.

[Eugene]

5. Iran's latest nuclear work seen as only test-scale

Source: Reuters

Iran's latest nuclear work seen as only test-scale

By Mark Heinrich
Thu Apr 19, 8:23 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran's launch of uranium enrichment in an
underground bunker, defying the United Nations, is a test-scale
operation not producing nuclear fuel in meaningful amounts,
diplomats said on Thursday.

They said Iran remains well short of the "industrial-scale"
capacity to refine uranium it announced on April 9.

-snip-

Iran has doubled the number of operating centrifuges in recent
weeks in its new Natanz plant. But it has not shown it can run
them nonstop for extended periods, the key to enriching enough
uranium for electricity or the core of an atom bomb.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070419/wl_nm/iran_nuclear_dc