Russian FM Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that UN SC talks on new sanctions against Iran should not hamper the implementation of an uranium swap agreement. The agreement was signed by Iran, Brazil, and Turkey.
The Turkish-Brazilian deal leaves Iran enriching uranium and is unlikely to satisfy the West
TWO leaders from two big regional powers, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, took a risk in travelling to Iran and negotiating over the country’s contentious nuclear programme. Many said they would fail. Instead the two announced triumph on Monday 17th May, clutching hands with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president. But will Western leaders, pressing for new sanctions on Iran, see it as enough?
Under the new deal, Iran says it would send 1,200 kg of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Turkey. In exchange it wants 120 kg of uranium enriched to a higher level (around 20%) for a research reactor which produces isotopes that can be used in medicine (typically for the treatment of cancer), within a year. …
Coal ash, fertiliser and even seawater may provide nuclear fuel
ONE of the factoids trotted out from time to time by proponents of nuclear power is that conventional coal-burning power stations release more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear stations do. The reason is that the ash left over when coal is burned contains radioactive elements, notably uranium and thorium.
Turn that logic on its head and it suggests that such ash is worth investigating as a source of nuclear fuel. And that is exactly what Sparton Resources, a firm based in Toronto, is doing. It has signed a deal with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), the authority that runs the country’s nuclear-power stations, to recover uranium from coal ash at a site in Lincang, in Yunnan province. …
How to analyse smuggled uranium
BETWEEN 1992 and 2007, according to Ian Hutcheon of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, 17kg of highly enriched uranium was seized from smugglers around the world, along with 400 grams of plutonium. In neither case is that enough for a proper atom bomb, but it is still worrying. Presumably, more is out there. Even if it is not, the material that has been found could have been used to make a “radiological” weapon, by blowing it up and scattering it around a city using conventional explosives. Dr Hutcheon is one of those charged with analysing this captured material, to discover how dangerous it really is and where it came from—and thus whether it has been stolen from legitimate nuclear projects or made on the sly. At the AAAS meeting in San Diego, he showed off some of the tricks of his trade.
His main tool is a device called a secondary-ion mass spectrometer. This measures the flight path of ions (electrically charged atoms) through a magnetic field. The lighter an ion is, the more the field bends its trajectory. The spectrometer can thus distinguish between, say, 235U (the fissile sort, from which bombs are made) and 238U (which has three extra neutrons in its nucleus and is much less fissile). Natural uranium has only seven atoms per thousand of the former. Weapons-grade uranium is 95% 235U. The “depleted” uranium used in armour-penetrating shells, by contrast, is almost pure 238U. …
America is rallying its friends to concentrate minds in the Islamic Republic
SURELY it is clear by now, many people feel, that Iran would rather go on enriching uranium than talk to America or anyone else about its suspect nuclear activities. If efforts to tempt it round have failed, could a tight economic squeeze lead the regime to think again about the costs of its defiance?
A new sanctions resolution will soon be up for discussion at the United Nations Security Council. But suppose the UN cannot get Iran to halt its work to process uranium and plutonium—for use in as yet unbuilt civilian nuclear-power reactors, Iran says, though others suspect they are for bomb-building. In that case, a lot more governments may have to be induced to impose eye-watering economic pain so as to get the regime’s attention. …
1939: Austrian-born physicist Lise Meitner publishes her discovery that atomic nuclei split during some uranium reactions. Her research will be overlooked by the Nobel committee when it awards a prize for the work.
Meitner is a prominent example of a woman whose gender put her in the back seat when the top prize was given. [...]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the further enrichment of his nation’s uranium. This came just days after he said he was open to a UN plan to enrich the material abroad, says VOA.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the production of higher-enriched uranium, casting doubt prospects of a nuclear exchange deal with the West. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the further enrichment of his nation’s uranium, just days after he said he was open to a UN plan to enrich the material abroad.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said yesterday he doubted a deal to send some of Iran’s uranium abroad for enrichment was close, directly contradicting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. The latest spat comes amid Western powers’ growing impatience with Iran over what they say
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his country is ready to send uranium abroad for further enrichment, in accordance with a UN-backed plan. Ahmadinejad told state television Tuesday that Iran has “no problem” sending low-enriched uranium abroad and getting it back several months later, when it is enriched to 20 percent capacity. He offered no timetable.
A uranium shortage could derail plans to go nuclear to cut carbon emissions
THERE is an awesome amount of energy tied up in an atom of uranium. Because of that, projections of the price of nuclear power tend to focus on the cost of building the plant rather than that of fuelling it. But proponents of nuclear energy—who argue, correctly, that such plants emit little carbon dioxide—would do well to remember that, like coal and oil, uranium is a finite resource.
Some 60% of the 66,500 tonnes of uranium needed to fuel the world’s existing nuclear power plants is dug fresh from the ground each year. The remaining 40% comes from so-called secondary sources, in the form of recycled fuel or redundant nuclear warheads. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is a United Nations body, and the Nuclear Energy Agency, which was formed by the rich countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, both reckon that, at present rates, these secondary sources will be exhausted within the next decade or so. …
Iran’s government says it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, upping the stakes in its tense standoff with international powers. Iranian media reported Sunday that the Cabinet approved the construction of 10 new uranium enrichment plants just two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran for its nuclear activities.
Hours after a report in one of the leading US newspapers reported that China had provided weapons-grade uranium, sufficient for making two atomic bombs, to Pakistan in 1982, Islamabad has rejected the report terming it as ‘baseless’.
“Pakistan strongly rejects the assertions in the article that is evidently timed to malign Pakistan and China,†The Dawn [...]
Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr.A Q Khan has sensationally revealed that China had provided weapons-grade uranium, sufficient for making two atomic bombs, to Pakistan in 1982.
According to Dr. Khan’s accounts in The Washington Post, the transfer of nuclear fuel was ‘part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime [...]
China provided Pakistan with weapons grade uranium for two bombs in 1982, according to notes made by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, the Washington Post reported Friday. In written accounts cited by the newspaper, Abdul Qadeer Khan said China also supplied a blueprint for a
Visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he will not buckle on Australia’’s refusal to sell uranium to India just hours ahead of a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Rudd told reporters here this morning that India’’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meant Australian would not sell it [...]
Australian Prime Minister (PM) Kevin Rudd will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this evening and will discuss issues of bilateral and international importance.
Rudd, who arrived here last night on a two-day visit, is expected to hold talks on maritime security.
Both leaders will sign agreements on maritime security and counter- terrorism measures.
Both leaders could also declare [...]
Energy starved India, which is pressing hard to ensure sufficient nuclear
fuel supply for its drying nuclear reactors, is likely to persuade the visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to open up the uranium sale to India.
” India is more than willing to buy Uranium from Australia and it will be a part of the [...]
Iran’s senior lawmakers have rejected UN-backed plan to ship much of the country’s uranium abroad for further enrichment.
The move raises further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will approve the deal.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads the parliament’s National Security Committee, told the semi-official ISNA news agency on saturday that the legislature is totally against shipping low [...]
