Calm Down About Bushehr

Friday, August 13, 2010

 

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plants I and IIAre you aware of the fear mongering that has gone with the idea that Iran is making a nuclear weapon that it will give to terrorists in order to destroy Israel? Did you know that Israel already possesses over a hundred nuclear weapons and that any state that employs one against Israel is finished?
Let's face the facts here. The Bushehr Nuclear Power facility is as old as the hills--it was dreamed up by the Shah of Iran. It was built by the Russians. It's a light water nuclear reactor, and light water reactors aren't really much good for creating weapons.
Anyway, it comes on line this week, and the fear mongering has begun in earnest:

Russia's nuclear agency says it will load fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week, marking the start of its launch.

"The fuel will be loaded on August 21," Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said. "This is the start of the physical launch (of the reactor)."
A ceremony will mark the start-up, Novikov also said, and from that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy facility.
Loading the reactor with fuel will be a key step toward starting up the reactor at the Islamic Republic's first nuclear power plant, Novikov said, though the reactor would not be considered operational from that date.
Russian officials said that the latest U.N. sanctions against Iran wouldn't affect the Bushehr project.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on March 18 that Russia planned to start up the reactor at the Bushehr plant in the summer of 2010.

Sanctions don't really matter when it comes to the facility at Bushehr because it is, as I said, a light water reactor system. Lots of countries with dubious resumes either have this type of technology or are getting it:

The VVER (From Russian: Водо-водяной энергетический реактор; transliterates as Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reactor;Water-Water Energetic Reactor) is a series of pressurised water reactors (PWRs) developed by the Soviet Union and used byArmenia, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, former East Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Slovakia, Ukraine, and theRussian Federation.
The earliest VVERs were built before 1970. The VVER-440 Model V230 is the most common design, delivering 440 MW of electrical power. The V230 employs six primary coolant loops each with a horizontal steam generator. A modified version of VVER-440, Model V213, was a product of the first nuclear safety standards adopted by Soviet designers. This model includes added emergency core cooling and auxiliary feedwater systems as well as upgraded accident localization systems. The larger VVER-1000 was developed after 1975 and is a four-loop system housed in a containment-type structure with a spray steamsuppression system. VVER reactor designs have been elaborated to incorporate automatic control, passive safety and containment systems associated with Western third generation nuclear reactors.
VVER series nuclear reactors were also scaled down in size and used by the Soviet Navy and RFAS nuclear submarine fleet as well as by surface warships.
The Russian abbreviation VVER stands for water-cooled, water-moderated energy reactor. This describes the pressurized water reactor design. Reactor fuel rods are fully immersed in water kept at 15 MPa of pressure so that it does not boil at normal (220 to over 300 °C) operating temperatures. Water in the reactor serves both as a coolant and a moderator which is an importantsafety feature. Should coolant circulation fail the neutron moderation effect of the water diminishes, reducing reaction intensity and compensating for loss of cooling, a condition known as negative void coefficient. The whole reactor is encased in a massive steel pressure shell. Fuel is low enriched (ca. 2.4–4.4% ²³⁵U) uranium dioxide (UO₂) or equivalent pressed into pellets and assembled into fuel rods.

In order to "weaponize" any aspect of what this type of facility makes use of, the entire facility has to be shut down. This is easy to detect. Should a complete shutdown out of cycle occur, the world will know about it through monitoring methods I won't describe here. This is not the type of facility that can produce weaponized plutonium, and that's the key to understanding why there is going to be a great deal of fear mongering. The isotope needed for making a plutonium weapon is P-239; the way that this facility works, the less than useful isotopes P-240 and so on are produced.
Nevertheless, Iran is prepared to defend Bushehr:

In an effort to ward off future airstrikes against Bushehr and other strategic sites, Iran has sought to purchase Tor-M1, Tor-M1T, and S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Russia. According to reports, Russia agreed in December 2001 to sell S-300 PMU-01 missiles and to train Iranian personnel in how to operate the system. While it was unclear whether or not such units would be stationed in the immediate vicinity of the reactor facility, existing IKONOS imagery as of 2002 did not indicate an air defense presence.

Any fool can scare you; it takes a little analysis of your own to see why this facility is no threat to Israel or world peace or to the idea that Iran can start a weapons program. Iran is an irrational actor, however. I support containment and deterrence; going to war with Iran over this facility is ridiculous however, since it does not violate any of the non-proliferation treaties that Iran has signed on to. Should Iran take any step to shut down the facility or disable monitoring systems designed to prevent the weaponization of material produced by the facility, I would have no problem with efforts to disable or destroy the facility. I think Iran needs the economic boost that the plant provides, however. I think Iran realizes that this is a prestige move, and it is not to be ruined trying to build a weapon that it can never use or deploy.
Should Iran be watched and sanctioned? Absolutely. But I wouldn't listen to people who are panicking about Bushehr; they are sadly misinformed as to what the thing actually does.