Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 26 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/
The International Atomic energy Agency's (IAEA) unwillingness to reply to Iran's invitation from Yukiya Amano to visit Iran's nuclear facilities is the consequence of lacking transparency in Iran's position and continuance of this country's suspicious nuclear activities, Iranian expert Reza Taghizadeh told Trend.
Iran's Residing Representative at IAEA Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh said he is slated to meet with IAEA chief nuclear inspector in Vienna in the first week of January to arrange a visit to Iran as soon as possible.
He said Iran had renewed an earlier invitation despite its "disappointment" that inspectors had not visited ahead of a November IAEA report on Iran's nuclear activities. This is Iran's third attempt to host IAEA's top officials in the country, during the last couple of months.
Soltaniyeh announced last week that he is in talks to invite IAEA Secretary General Yukiya Amano to Iran. Iran invited Amano to visit Iran's nuclear facilities back in October 2011, however, the invitation blew off, after Amano published an alarming report about the probable military aspects of Iran's nuclear activities in November.
A week after publishing IAEA's report on Iran, Amano said that he had asked Iran to permit a visit by senior officials to further investigations.
A member of Trend Experts Council Taghizadeh thinks Iran seems to have decided to continue enriching uranium and move its enrichment equipments to underground sites, whereas IAEA and international community await halting uranium enrichment process in Iran.
"No matter for discussion in this case," he added.
Iran and "5+1 group" headed by High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton have suspended nuclear negotiations since January 2011 because of deference positions between sides.
Iran's uranium enrichment
Iran says enriching uranium in 3.5-percentage and 20-percentage levels are vital for it's nuclear plants. Despite Russia's obligation to supply Iran's only nuclear power plant(NPP) - Bushehr, Iran announced that it is preparing to construct more 20 NPPs (works with 3.5-percentage uranium) to boost the country's nuclear power generation to 20 gigawatt. On the other hand, Iran decided to make 20-percentage enriched uranium to supply fuel for its 5-Megawatt Amirabad Nuclear Research Centre in Tehran.
Uranium resources of Iran were not considered rich. The results of the The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) exploration activities had shown proven reserves of about 3,000 tons of Uranium.
In the mid-1970s, Iran acquired 600 tons of yellowcake from South Africa. Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. However, the Western resources says Iran's yellowcake reserves are nearly finished. Iran has made above 3 tons of 3.5-percentage and 70 kg of 20-percentage enriched uranium from its yellowcake reserves, so far.
Taghizadeh says that Iran's total uranium reserves can meet only a 1000-megawatt NPP for ten years, not more.
"Supplying a NPP with nuclear fuel needs the activation of 60,000 centrifuges, but Iran has only about 9000 centrifuges in Natanz enrichment plant, half of which are inactive," he noted.
Iran had another secret enrichment plant, Fordo, into the heart of mountains which was revealed in September 2009.
Iran announced earlier that it is preparing to move its advanced centrifuges to Fordo to boost producing 20-percetage uranium, which caused another concern on Iran's nuclear activities.
For making nuclear warhead uranium gas (UF6) should be enriched above 95 percent. Taghizadeh says that Iran's current UF6 reserves meet making at least six nuclear warheads in case of increasing the enrichment percentage.
As for uranium enrichment, it is necessary to note that uranium has two isotopes: 235 and 239. As uranium gets enriched, the density of isotope 235 raises. Uranium enrichment up to 20 percent means that isotope 235 density in a certain quantity of uranium gas is 20 percent.
On the other hand, the speed of enriching uranium has direct ratio with the isotope 235 density. In other words, the required time to increase the enrichment percentage from 3.5-precentage to 95 is several times more than the required time for increasing the enrichment level from 20 percent to 95.
Obstacles in route of Iran's uranium enrichment facilities
Despite announcement of new technical achievement in Iran's nuclear program in last years, Iran faced serious obstacles in 2011 because of more tightened sanctions, Taghizadeh said.
Iran announced last year that it succeed in producing new generation centrifuges made of graphite and maraging steel with high enrichment capacity.
Graphite and maraging steel are both corrosion-resistant materials against UF6 and have low friction degree in high rotate speeds, which allow the uranium enrichment speed to rise.
Iran's total centrifuges in Natanz were around 9,000 in 2010 and according to IAEA's new reports this figure remains unchanged.
Taghizadeh says Iran has faced serious obstacles to achieve more progress in both cases due to more imposed, tightened sanctions.
"Iran needs to import about 120 details of centrifuge from black markets, however because of sanctions against country's nuclear program, there is a major obstacle of reaching those details.
A Centrifuge composed of 180 details and can be run at speeds between about 2000 and 60000 revolutions per minute.
Taghizadeh says that, on the other hand, Iran has faced yellowcake shortage to inject into the centrifuges as well.