INTL Iran will enrich uranium to 20%: Ahmadinejad

[Spirit Of Truth]

Surprised I didn't see this posted yet.

Look, folks, Iran is crossing the red line.

Iran will enrich uranium to 20%: Ahmadinejad

By Hiedeh Farmani (AFP) – 2 hours ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hLfSJCVkkdNSjG5LA-oogmnfbr2Q

TEHRAN — A defiant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran will itself enrich uranium up to 20 percent purity in a blow to Western efforts to stop Tehran's sensitive nuclear activities.

Ahmadinejad also said that even the Islamic republic's arch-foe Israel would be unable to do a "damn thing" about Iran's nuclear programme.

He reiterated that as far as Tehran is concerned, the nuclear issue is "over" and said the Islamic republic will "not back down from its rights."

"The Iranian nation will by itself make the 20 percent (nuclear) fuel (enriched uranium) and whatever it needs," the hardliner announced in a speech broadcast live on state television from the central city of Isfahan.

It was unclear whether the cabinet had taken a formal decision on enriching uranium to 20 percent, as on Sunday he had announced his government would meet on Wednesday to consider such a proposal.

Enriched uranium lies at the heart of Iran's nuclear controversy as the material can be used to power a nuclear reactor as well as to make the core of an atomic bomb. Iran denies having such ambitions.

Neither Israel -- widely believed to be the sole nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, albeit undeclared -- nor the United States has ruled out military action against Iran over its atomic ambitions.

"The Zionist regime is nothing. Even its masters cannot do a damn thing," Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday, a day after declaring: "Any finger which is about to pull the trigger will be cut off."

Ahmadinejad came down heavily on Western powers and Israel in his speech, accusing them of using against Tehran what he said was an Iranian proposal to exchange its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in return for 20 percent enriched material.

"They want to use against us what we proposed ourselves," he said in the province where Iran's flagship uranium enrichment plant is located in the city of Natanz.

He also said that Iran will build 10 more plants of the size of Natanz.

World powers had backed a proposal brokered by the UN atomic watchdog under which Iran would send most of its LEU to Russia and France for conversion into nuclear fuel for a research reactor in the capital.

But Tehran rejected the proposal last month, insisting that it wanted to hand over its LEU at the same time it receives the 20 percent enriched uranium, and that the handover must take place inside Iran.

Since then tension between Tehran and world powers has heightened as world powers object to Iran enriching uranium on its own, fearing it could divert its stock of LEU to make atomic weapons.

Iran's long-time nuclear partner Russia has also been talking of backing further sanctions against Tehran if it fails to convince world powers of its intentions.

Tehran is already under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions for failing to halt uranium enrichment at Natanz.

Late on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad lashed out at Moscow for voting against Iran in an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) vote last week that censured Tehran for building a second uranium enrichment plant.

Iran is building the new facility deep inside a mountain near the Shiite shrine city of Qom, and disclosure of its existence outraged Western powers.

In a rare tirade against the country that is building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the Gulf port of Bushehr, and which had also been expected to deliver advanced air-defence missiles to Iran, Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Russia had made a "mistake" in its vote at the IAEA.

"Russia made a mistake. It does not have an accurate analysis of today's world situation," he said.

Ahmadinejad vowed that despite the IAEA vote setback Western powers would not succeed in isolating Iran, and dismissed any possibility of military action against it.

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Related thread:

Beware the winds of December - Israel / Syria / Iran

 

[Dobbin]

A little nuclear physics for the masses. From Wikipedia...

Low-enriched uranium (LEU)
Low-enriched uranium' (LEU) has a lower than 20% concentration of 235U. For use in commercial light water reactors (LWR), the most prevalent power reactors in the world, uranium is enriched to 3 to 5% 235U. Fresh LEU used in research reactors is usually enriched 12% to 19.75% U-235, the latter concentration being used to replace HEU fuels when converting to LEU.

[edit] Highly enriched uranium (HEU)

A billet of highly enriched uranium metalHighly enriched uranium (HEU) has a greater than 20% concentration of 235U or 233U.

The fissile uranium in nuclear weapons usually contains 85% or more of 235U known as weapon(s)-grade, though for a crude, inefficient weapon 20% is sufficient (called weapon(s)-usable); some argue that even less is sufficient, but then the critical mass for unmoderated fast neutrons rapidly increases, reaching infinity at 6%235U.[2]

The very first uranium bomb, Little Boy in 1945, used only 64 kilograms of 80% enriched uranium. Wrapping the weapon's fissile core in a neutron reflector (which is standard on all nuclear explosives) can dramatically lessen the critical mass. Because the core was surrounded by a good neutron reflector, at explosion it comprised almost 2.5 critical masses. Neutron reflectors and compressing the fissile core via implosion allow nuclear weapon designs that use less than what would be one bare-sphere critical mass at normal density. The presence of too much of the 238U isotope inhibits the runaway nuclear chain reaction that is responsible for the weapon's power. The critical mass for 85% highly enriched uranium is about 50 kilograms (110 lb), which at normal density would be a sphere about 17 centimetres (6.7 in) in diameter.

Later US nuclear weapons usually use plutonium-239 in the primary stage, but the secondary stage which is compressed by the primary nuclear explosion often uses HEU with enrichment between 40% and 80%[3] along with the fusion fuel lithium deuteride. For the secondary of a large nuclear weapon, the higher critical mass of less-enriched uranium can be an advantage as it allows the core at explosion time to contain a larger amount of fuel. The 238U is not fissile but still fissionable by fusion neutrons.

HEU is also used in fast neutron reactors, whose cores require about 20% or more of fissile material, as well as in naval reactors, where it often contains at least 50% 235U, but typically does not exceed 90%. The Fermi-1 commercial fast reactor prototype used HEU with 26.5% 235U. For criticality experiments, enrichment of uranium to over 97% has been accomplished.[4]

And it sounds like Iran is making a statement.

The Westinghouse reactor I'm familiar with (Seabrook Station) uses 4 percent enrichment. Submarine reactors use nearly 100 percent EU as a matter of weight savings - but they run the risk of "self detonation." The structural geometry of the submarine nuclear core prevents this.

Joe

 

[Spirit Of Truth]

'Israel can't do damn thing to stop Iran'

By Stan Goodenough
December 02, 2009

http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2719

Iran is going to build more nuclear plants and enrich uranium to higher levels that previously announced, and there is not a damn thing Israel can do to stop it.

So swore Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week, openly laughing off the feeble efforts of the international community to pull Tehran into line.

Despite numerous and intensifying Israeli appeals to western world leaders to put a stop to Iran's pursuit of atomic weapons, the rogue state has been barreling ahead, even as Ahmadinejad repeatedly foretells the destruction of the Jewish state.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has the expertise and armaments necessary to deal with the Iranian threat, but Israel is fearful of the global condemnation that will erupt against her if she does.

Some in Israel have expressed the belief that - with the world media's ceaseless demonizing of Israel and turning the nations against her - the climate is being created in which a second Holocaust could take place.

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Golly....no baiting here:

http://www.spiritoftruth.org/iraniannuclearbomb.htm