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Science of Nuclear Capacity Fuels Doubt on Deal's Impact

Science of Nuclear Capacity Fuels Doubt on Deals Impact
WSJ
Δευ, 25 Νοεμβρίου 2013 - 19:06
The big question over the agreement forged Sunday in this Swiss lakeside city between Iran and the world's big powers is this: How much will it delay, if at all, Tehran's ability to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon?
The big question over the agreement forged Sunday in this Swiss lakeside city between Iran and the world's big powers is this: How much will it delay, if at all, Tehran's ability to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon?

Israel argues that as long as Iran can enrich uranium at even a low level, it can elude detection of any clandestine effort toward making higher-level, weapons-grade fuel, and can quickly restore the capacity that it agreed to reduce.

The international community has sought ways to ensure that any Iranian move toward a weapon is slowed, and can be caught, though Iran says its activities are for civilian purposes. Even with Sunday's accord, most analysts believe it would still take only weeks or months to produce enough highly enriched fissile material to fuel a bomb if Iran chose to go all out.

Uranium ore in nature is only 0.7% comprised of the fissile isotope Uranium 235. The aim of the nuclear process is to enrich the material to produce a higher proportion of the isotope.

Analysts agree that the hardest part of enrichment is the technology to reach a low level. From there, enriching it toward the 90% purity required in a nuclear weapon isn't a major step. Uranium enriched to 5%--still allowed in Sunday's pact--is almost three-quarters toward producing 90% weapons-grade material, says Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the nonproliferation and disarmament program of the Institute for International Strategic Studies in London.

Iran has more than 18,000 centrifuges, according to the International Atomic Energy, of which the vast majority are older first-generation technology, so-called IR1s, whose speed and efficiency levels are low. Not all of them are operating. They also have installed--but not connected--around 1,000 second-generation centrifuges, or IR2s, said to be three to four times more efficient.

Even 3,000 of the old IR1s, run around the clock, could produce enough high-enriched uranium for a weapon in around three months, many experts believe. Were Iran to operate the same number of IR2 centrifuges, Iran could "break out" and produce enough material for a bomb in as little as four weeks. But putting the material in a functioning nuclear weapon would take, say experts, at least six months more.

Sunday's deal doesn't require that Iran dismantle and remove any centrifuges. A key constraint, however, is its agreement to stop the production of uranium enriched to near-20% purity, and to dilute to lower purity or convert all of its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium into an oxide not usable in weapons.

But Robert Einhorn, a former Obama administration official who is now senior fellow with the arms control and non-proliferation initiative at Brookings Institution, said that can be tackled as part of a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran in the coming months.

"Critics are correct that the deal does not reduce Iran 's nuclear infrastructure or significantly lengthen Iran 's nuclear breakout timeline. Those are goals that must be achieved in a comprehensive, final agreement," he wrote Sunday. "What the initial deal does is create a solid foundation for the very difficult negotiations ahead, and it leaves intact the tough sanctions needed as leverage to get Iran to accept a sound final agreement."

Iran also will agree to limit the numbers and capacity of its operating centrifuges, used to increase the proportion of the isotopes contained in natural uranium that can generate a nuclear reaction. It agreed to allow daily United Nations inspections of key nuclear sites and agree not to make its Arak nuclear reactor, which could offer a separate plutonium track to nuclear weapons, operational. Iran has stockpiled nearly 200 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20%, according to the U.N.'s atomic watchdog. Experts say approximately 240 kg of uranium converted into weapons-grade is enough for one bomb.

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