Iran's & France's Nuclear Programs

Such a coincident on the timing of these two reports, both regarding nuclear power. First one is about Frances pursuit of more nuclear energy to produce electricity power and Iran’s announcement the following day.


CBS’s 60 Minutes program last Sunday (April 8, 2007) was an informative coverage of France's new peaceful nuclear ambitions and major change in directions. It addressed the global warming issue and their steps towards more nuclear power stations than ever before. It covers the French nuclear story, the (green) environmental issues, the new proposed scientific on going research to convert the nuclear waste to reusable nuclear material, and finally the US under ground storage site and capacity issue.

Both stories follows:


Iran Says It's Able To Make Nuclear Fuel.
Iran Says It Is Now Able To Produce Nuclear Fuel On An 'Industrial Scale'

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility at Natanz that Iran was now capable of enriching nuclear fuel "on an industrial scale."
(AP) Iran announced Monday (April 9, 2007) (AP) Iran announced Monday that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, a dramatic expansion of a nuclear program that has drawn U.N. sanctions and condemnation from the West.

Yahoo’s same coverage today (April 9, 2007) NATANZ, Iran - Iran announced a dramatic expansion of uranium enrichment Monday, saying it has begun operating 3,000 centrifuges — nearly 10 times the previously known number — in defiance of U.N. demands it halt its nuclear program or face increased sanctions. (Play the Video)
Iran to West: Do Not Stop Nuclear Push Iran announces an expanded nuclear enrichment program, defying U.N. sanctions and drawing ire from Western nations. Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a nuclear warhead. (April 9, 2007)

But here is where the story gets very interesting. I love the timing of CBS program on Sunday, April 8 2007, regarding Frances state of nuclear industry. This is very interesting. How come it’s okay for France, but not appropriate for Iran? What are we going to do when we run out of oil? This is a good argument for Iran’s position on this issue, but I’m not it’s worth the penalties, sanctions, and isolation Iran is going to face, if we continue on the same path. West (perhaps even the Chinese) don’t trust us with the nukes, even peaceful nukes!

France: Vive Les Nukes Steve Kroft On How France Is Becoming The Model For Nuclear Energy Generation, Sunday April 8, 2007,on 60 Minutes program coverage of French Nuclear industry:


(CBS) With power demands rising and concerns over global warming increasing, what the world needs now is an efficient means of producing large amounts of carbon free energy. One of the few available options is nuclear, a technology whose time seemed to come and go and may now be coming again.

For the first time in decades, new nuclear plants are being built, and not just in Iran and North Korea. With zero green house gas emissions, the U.S. government, public utilities and even some environmental groups are taking a second look at nuclear power.

And as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, one of the first the places they are looking is to France, where it has been a resounding success and the attitude is "Vive Les Nukes."
When much of the world spurned nuclear power, 30 years ago, the French, being French, decided to go their own way and embrace it. Paris, the "City of Light," is lit by nuclear energy, which powers just about everything else in France: its homes, its factories, even its high speed railroads.

Nearly 80 percent of the country's electricity comes from 58 nuclear power plants, crammed into a country the size of Texas. Pierre Gadonniex, the head "Electricite de France," the country’s national utility says it all began with a French obsession for energy independence.

"In France, we have nearly no coal. We have no oil. So clearly, nuclear appeared to be the best way," Gadonniex explains. "And 30 years later, it appears to be a very smart decision."

Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, it has the lowest electric bills in Europe. In fact, France has so much cheap electricity, it exports it to its European neighbors. French nuclear plants supply power to parts of Germany, Italy and help light the city of London.

"It is a very competitive way of producing electricity when oil prices are beyond, I would say, around $40 a barrel," Gadonniex tells Kroft.

And the rest of the world has taken notice. Nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, are either building or planning to build new nuclear plants, and some of that business will go to AREVA, the French government monopoly that controls every step of its nuclear industry from uranium mining to plant design construction to radioactive waste disposal.

Deep in the wine country of Burgundy, in a massive factory, AREVA is building the first European reactors since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Bertrande Durrande, the Executive Vice President for Manufacturing, tells Kroft the business is "definitely growing."

Besides the new reactors it is building for France and Finland, Durrande says, AREVA is bidding on a project to build four new nuclear reactors in China.

Asked how many plants he thinks might be built in the next 20 years, Durrande says, "A minimum of 20. Which is quite a change when you compare it to the past."

And some of them will almost certainly be in the United States, which hasn't built a new nuclear plant since the 1970's. With energy prices and global temperatures near their reported highs, and the possibility that greenhouse gases will be regulated, the Bush administration is pushing a nuclear revival.

In many respects, the nuclear industry in the United States has disappeared. Over 100 plants were cancelled in the 1970's.

Kroft talked to Clay Sell, the Deputy Secretary of Energy and the administration's point man on nuclear power. With world energy demand expected to rise 50 percent over the next 25 years, he says it is the only practical option for producing huge amounts of electricity with no carbon emissions.

"No serious person can look at the challenge of greenhouse gases and climate change and not come to the conclusion that nuclear power has to play a significant and growing role in meeting that challenge worldwide," Sell says.

Asked how much interest there is right now in building new plants, Sell says, "There is a tremendous amount of interest. Two years ago there was exactly zero plants on the drawing boards here in the United States. Today, there are about 15 companies talking about building over 30 commercial nuclear power reactors. Now, all of those won't get built. But we think there's a significant chance that many of them will be built."

But so far, no one has signed up to actually build one, an undertaking that requires a huge investment of capital and a certain amount of faith. In the 1980's and 90's political opposition, regulatory delays, cost overruns, and a drop in electricity demand forced utilities to pull the plug on dozens of projects, and the industry has a long memory.

"I recall one story, a man who is a CEO today of one of our leading companies," Sell says, "And he described the pain associated with beginning what he thought would be a billion-dollar plant in the 1970's, and bringing it online as a $9 billion plant 20 years later. And he made the point to me that that is not a lesson that'll quickly be forgotten in the industry."

France is expanding and moving more towards nuclear power, so should we. It’s more economical, it’s more environmentally Green (no CO2 emissions). Wait, I’ll explain what I mean. You are worried about the nuclear waste? Well, French have utilized new scientific processes that reuse their nuclear waste and reduce the expensive and expansive US problem with its nuclear waste storage and danger to the environment. Actually US is behind schedule on creating it’s under ground nuclear waste storage site (many miles under the ground and many a mountain) and it has already exceeded the capacity of the site that not quiet ready yet. Scientist have proposed and are working on even more safer and more reusable options available to safely transform the nuclear waste to something recyclable and reusable. Obviously, it should be very clear that I’m no physicist or nuclear power expert. I’m just reporting (although I’m not a reporter either) what’s available through responsible and creditable media news, information, and other wise available to general public (like moi)

Here is the rest of CBS 60 minutes’ program aired on Sunday April 8, 2007:
Read the rest here.

Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Iran Announces Expanded Uranium Enrichment Program, In Defiance Of U.N. Sanctions.

(AP) Iran announced Monday that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, defiantly expanding a nuclear program that has drawn U.N. sanctions and condemnation from the West.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility at Natanz that Iran was now capable of enriching nuclear fuel "on an industrial scale."

Asked if Iran has begun injecting uranium gas into 3,000 centrifuges for enrichment, top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani replied, "Yes." He did not elaborate, but it was the first confirmation that Iran had installed the larger set of centrifuges after months of saying it intends to do so. Until now, Iran was only known to have 328 centrifuges operating.

Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a nuclear warhead. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of intending to produce weapons, a charge the country denies.

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. nuclear watchdog group "don't believe Iran's assurances that their (nuclear) program is peaceful in nature."

The White House also criticized the announcment.

"Iran continues to defy the international community and further isolate itself by expanding its nuclear program, rather than suspending uranium enrichment," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, had no immediate comment on Monday's announcement.

The United Nations has vowed to ratchet up sanctions as long as Iran refuses to suspend enrichment. The Security Council first imposed limited sanctions in December, then increased them slightly last month and has set a new deadline of late May.

"What we are looking for are reasonable Iranian leaders who view the cost-benefit calculation and see that it is not to the benefit of the Iranian people to continue to pursue the course on which they find themselves," McCormack said.

Michael Levi, a fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, was skeptical of the Iranian claims. He said by his calculations, the capabilities Iran has just announced would provide 10 percent of the material needed to run its plant.

"To me, that's not industrial scale," Levi said. "An industrial-scale facility is a facility that can support your industry."

On the other hand, "from a political perspective, it's more important to have them in place than to have them run properly," he explained since the announcement stirs up support and patriotism at home, and the international community has almost no way to verify how well the program is working.

"Iran looks to be moving its nuclear program along on a political schedule rather than a technical schedule," Levi said.

Levi marveled that Iran has the power to cause such a stir with an announcement. He noted that most of the time, world leaders complain they can't trust Iran, "except when they say something really scary, we take them at their word."

In his speech, Ahmadinejad insisted Iran has been cooperative with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, allowing it inspections of its facilities, but he warned, "Don't do something that will make this great nation reconsider its policies" in a reference to the threat of increased U.N. sanctions.

"With great honor, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," Ahmadinejad said.

Larijani said his country was willing to offer assurances that its program is peaceful. But he said the West must accept its nuclear program as a fact: "We do not give in our rights."

On April 9, 2006, Iran announced it had first enriched uranium using an array of 164 centrifuges.

Across Iran, school bells rang on Monday to mark the "national day of nuclear energy." The overnment sent out text messages of congratulations for the occasion to millions of mobile phone users.


In Tehran, some 200 students formed a human chain at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization while chanting "death to America" and "death to Britain." The students burnt flags of the U.S. and Britain.

Experts say the Natanz plant needs between 50,000 to 60,000 centrifuges to consistently produce fuel for a reactor or build a warhead.

In the enrichment process, uranium gas is pumped into a "cascade" of thousands of centrifuges, which spin the gas at supersonic speeds to purify it. Uranium enriched to a low level, at least 3 percent, can be used as fuel, while at a far higher level, more than 90 percent, it can be used to build a weapon.

Also Monday, Iranian state television reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general who is under travel restrictions urged by the sanctions visited Russia without any difficulty.

Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, who is also deputy interior minister for security affairs, was quoted on the state TV Web site as saying that his six-day journey to Moscow, which ended Monday, showed "the ineffectiveness of the resolution."

The resolution urges all governments to ban visits by the 15 individuals and says that should such visits occur _ presumably for exceptional circumstances _ the countries should notify a U.N. committee.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov confirmed that Zolqadr visited Russia. He told The Associated Press that the resolution does not prohibit visits by the listed individuals, but calls for heightened vigilance "directed first of all at people who are directly related to nuclear programs" _ suggesting that Zolqadr was not.

Tensions are also high between Iran and the West following the 13-day detention of 15 British sailors by Iran. The sailors, who were seized by Revolutionary Guards off the Iraqi coast, were released on Wednesday, but since then have said they were put under psychological pressure by their captors to force them to "confess" to being in Iranian waters when captured, angering many in Britain.
____

AP writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.

I guess everyone else is changing their thinking. Germans are very interested too, according to this site: New pro-nuclear sentiment in Germany

In the spirit of copyrights law and protection of intellectual property, I shall give credit to the sources where I got most of this material from. The majority of these reports come from CBS, AP, & Yahoo intermingled with my comments (mostly within block quotes.)