Irans Nuclear File and Security in Persian Gulf

1
Irans Nuclear Fileand Security in Persian Gulf

• Abbas Maleki
• Landau Network, Stanley Foundation
• Tremezzo, Italy
• April 25 10, 2007

2
What I want to say

• Theories of Nuclear Proliferation and Restraint
• Few Options for Iran to end the crises
• Nuclear Technology and security Arrangement In
  Persian Gulf
• How to deal with Iran

3
Theories of NuclearProliferation and Restraint
Proliferation Restraint

• Regime
• Norms
• Alliance/no threat
• Pressure
• Electoral politics
• Liberalization
• Lack resources
• Democracy

• Security threats
• Prestige (status)
• Regional/other ambitions
• Organizational politics
• State building
• Electoral politics

4
Irans Nuclear History
5
Irans Nuclear History (2)
6
Irans Nuclear History (3)
7
Irans advantages

• Irans enormous reserves of oil and natural gas
  make it a significant factor in the global fossil
  fuel market and provide Tehran with its own
  economic leverage.  
• Iran has an extensive trading relationship with
  the European Union,
• A burgeoning energy relationship with China,
• A longstanding commercial nuclear relationship
  with Russia. 
• Billions and tens of billions of dollars are at
  stake 
• Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels understand that
  they cannot significantly hurt Iran without also
  hurting themselves
• Membership to Shanghai Cooperation Organization

8
Irans Energy Reserves by Type
9
Irans Energy Reserves
10
Iranian uranium fuel cycle path
5
Bushehr
Fuel fabrication
4
3
Natanz
Isfahan
1
Saghand/Yazd Area
11
Irans centrifuge Industrial plant

• Plan
• Test single P1 centrifuge with nuclear material
  (UF6)
• Test a cascade of 10 P1s with UF6.
• Test 19 P1s in a cascade.
• Run a cascade of 168 P1s.
• Run the second cascade of 164 P1s
• Run 9 cascade of 164 P1s
• Matching together?

12
Joint Enrichment Facility in Iran

• Commercial consortium of the major nuclear fuel
  suppliers that would guarantee fuel supply if
  problems arose with the multinational facility
• An MNA must provide both assured access to fuel
  for Iran and
• Assurance to the international community that the
  enrichment facility or technology will not be
  turned to military purposes.
• The success or failure of any particular MNA
  proposal will depend on practical details such as
  
• -ownership structure,
• -Technical safeguards,
• -Questions about staffing,
• -Controls on and access to sensitive
  information.

13
Organizational Chart for Joint Venture
14
French Model

• A French-led enrichment program announced
  recently by Mohammad Saidi
• The development could take two different forms
  -Either a brand new enrichment facility by an
  international holding company, or the conversion
  of the present Iranian enrichment program into
  one jointly owned and operated by Iran and
  outside governments.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has
  already envisioned the possibility of
  multi-lateral operation of existing facilities.

15
Iran URENCO

• Iran and Europe join together to build a
  state-of-the-art enrichment plant in Iran using
  URENCOs most advanced centrifuges with the
  proviso that the centrifuges bottom bearings
  contain self destruct mechanisms that could
  deploy in the event of unauthorized use.

16
MIT-Harvard Initiative

• Two MITs scholars proposed the joint venture
  could be created as a holding company that would
  lease centrifuges from an outside source such as
  URENCO.
• A typical URENCO facility, equipped with 50,000
  advanced T-21 centrifuges, is capable of
  producing fuels for 42 of 1,000 megawatt nuclear
  power plants, like the one under construction in
  Bushehr.

17
The JV Centrifuge plant
Employees will come from each of the partner
countries. There will be employees from each
country present 24/7.
5 Million SWU-kg/yr ? support 42 reactors SWU
Separative Work Unit
18
Times and Costs

• The T-21 centrifuge has not gone into mass
  production yet, however, we estimate from LES and
  George Besse II the costs associated with this
  facility
• 1.9 billion to 2.8 billion, depending on how
  much extra it might cost to build a high tech
  facility in a developing country.
• Again from George Besse II, we estimate that the
  entire facility might take 7 years to build.
• But it could be made in stages, with the first
  taking as little as 18 months.
• Matt Bunn

19
P2 centrifuges are made of maraging steel with a
bellows in the middle to handle resonances.
The IAEA has been told that Iran cannot
manufacture maraging steel bellows and so has
produced shorter rotors.
20
Preventing Nationalization
Political Barriers
Cascades will be setup as inflexibly as possible
to prevent them from being quickly rearranged for
producing HEU.
Self-destruct mechanisms
The bearing has very complex and difficult
groves
21
Enrichment in Russian Soils

• multinational enrichment center to produce fuel
• Possibly in Russia, with Iran playing a central
  role in its management

22
Fuel Bank

• An international fuel bank, with rules that would
  require it to step in and provide fuel unless the
  Security Council specifically voted to bar it
  from doing so

23
Stockpile in Iran

• a stockpile within Iran itself.

24
Incentives for Iran

• Multi-layered guarantees of a reliable fuel
  supply for a peaceful Iranian nuclear program
• Iranian agreement that large-scale enrichment
  will occur elsewhere, not in Iran, at least for a
  period
• Full Iranian cooperation with international
  inspectors, including ratification of the Agreed
  Protocol to safeguards
• voluntary additional steps to clarify remaining
  questions about its past activities
• New Trade and Cooperation Agreement between Iran
  and Europe
• Assurances from the United States and the other
  major powers that they will not attack Iran or
  attempt to overthrow its government as long as
  Iran complies with its nuclear obligations and
  does not commit or sponsor aggression against
  others.

25
What does Iran need?

• Incentive package mentions
• Respecting Iran's rights under the nuclear
  Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
• Firm guarantees on the proposed offers of nuclear
  assistance
• Sale of light water reactors to Iran
• Secured nuclear fuel supply
• Iran seeks clarification on the status of U.S.
  sanctions which presently prohibit those offers
  of nuclear and technological assistance to Iran
• Is the United States willing to lift some if not
  all of those sanctions?

26
European Incentives

• The proposal presented by Javier Solana to Iran
  on June 5, 2006 contains most, but not all, the
• necessary elements for a resolution to the
  Iranian nuclear issue.
• The offer includes, a five-year guaranteed
  reactor fuel supply,
• Access to advanced reactor technology for new
  projects,
• Promises of increased trade and investment, and
• Expanded cooperation in other areas, including
  civil aviation and development of the oil and gas
  sector.

27
Warm and Cold Standby

• In 2000, the recently-privatized U.S. Enrichment
  Corporation (USEC) announced that it planned to
  shut down the Portsmouth enrichment, one of the
  two U.S. gaseous diffusion enrichment plants, as
  there was not enough demand to require both of
  them.
• The Department of Energy (DOE), which continued
  to own the Portsmouth and Paducah facilities
  while leasing them to USEC, developed a warm
  standby and a cold standby option for
  Portsmouth.

28
Warm Standby

• Among the proposals and counterproposals seeking
  a resolution to this issue, one that is
  especially gaining momentum in some quarters of
  Europe and Iran is to allow Irans centrifuges to
  spin but with no uranium hexafluoride.
• This would give Iran important knowledge of
  centrifuge cascade operations with proliferation
  risks

29
Warm Standby

• Portions of the plant would have continued to
  operate in a recycle mode, in which, the
  product and waste from the cascade would be
  returned to the input
• Material would cycle through the cascade without
  actually getting enriched, essentially just to
  keep that part of the cascade running.
• The rest of the plant would have been shut down,
  but fully buffered with dry air pumped into the
  cascades to ensure that damp air would not get in
  and cause corrosion, potentially allowing a
  relatively rapid restart.

30
Cold Standby

• The plant was to be entirely shut down, but with
  all of the cells buffered with dry air as above,
  and with constant surveillance and maintenance to
  ensure that it could be returned to operation
  reasonably quickly if needed.
• Buffer alarms were to be installed on the cells
  to sound a warning if damp air began to leak in
  to any of them.
• Some uranium deposits that had built up on parts
  of the cascades over the years, which could have
  blocked up the system as it moved to restart,
  were to be removed.
• Restart in this case was expected to take up to
  two years.
• The cost of this option was projected to be far
  less, 210 million total over four years.

31
How to deal with Iran?

• Coercion has so far failed
• More effective might be a package of inducements
  that included acceptance of and help for Irans
  ambitious civilian nuclear power program
• Relaxation of existing economic sanctions against
  Iran
• Establishment of a dialogue with Tehran on
  regional security GCC Iran Iraq 

32
How to deal with Iran (2)

• Withhold on Irans strength overestimation
• Support democracy in Iran, not Regime Change
• Refrain to involve Iran on Shia-Sunni
  confrontation
• Insisting on monitoring Irans nuclear activities
• Revival EU proposal on TCA

33
How to deal with Iran (3)

• Engaging Iran to the regional activities in
  Persian Gulf to remove Confidence Gap
• Reactivate of RAPMI environment program
• Sharing Iranian companies to build new nuclear
  power plants in the region
• Removing obstacles on Irans energy projects in
  Caspian Sea

34
Thank you

• maleki_at_caspianstudies.com