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The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it. It also echoes fears in the nuclear industry about the safety of a secretive project to which few outsiders have had access. Iran is the only country with a nuclear plant that has not joined the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which obliges signatories to observe international safety standards. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Sami Alfaraj, head of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies and an adviser to the Kuwaiti government, said an accident at Bushehr would be a "total calamity for the world", in which nuclear contamination would spew across a wide region.He could not assess Bushehr's safety because Iran's co-operation with its neighbours had been "nil".

"They say trust us, but there's no such thing as trust us in nuclear politics. They are playing Russian roulette not just with us but with the world."Bushehr began in 1975 when the shah of Iran awarded the contract to Kraftwerk Union of Germany.When the German company pulled out after the 1979 Islamic revolution the two reactors were far from finished, and they were damaged during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.Airstrikes left the containment vessel with 1700 holes, letting in hundreds of tonnes of rainwater.

The regime revived the project in the 1990s, but with one reactor only. It wanted a prestige project to show that the Islamic Republic could match the scientific achievements of the West.It may also have wanted cover for its nuclear weapons program - and the opportunities for personal enrichment the project gave Iran's elite. This time, Iran used Russian engineers, who had not built a foreign reactor since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. Russia's experts wanted to start from scratch. The Iranians, having already spent more than $US1 billion, insisted they built on the German foundations.This involved adapting a structure built for a vertical German reactor to take a horizontal Russian reactor - an unprecedented operation. Of the 80,000 pieces of German equipment, many were corroded or lacked manuals.

Because it appears on the websites of local Fox News stations, one instinctively takes an article titled Insider: Iran Will Be 'Next Chernobyl' with a grain of salt. But its plausibility is undeniable. See if you agree. The first Iranian nuclear power station is inherently unsafe and will probably cause a "tragic disaster for humankind," according to a document apparently written by an Iranian whistleblower. There is a "great likelihood" that the Bushehr reactor could generate the next nuclear catastrophe after Chernobyl or Fukushima, says the document. … It claims that Bushehr, which began operating last month after 35 years of intermittent construction, was built by "second-class engineers" who bolted together Russian and German technologies from different eras; that it sits in one of the world's most seismically active areas but could not withstand a major earthquake; and that it has "no serious training program" for staff or a contingency plan for accidents. The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it.

More about the Russian-German incompatibility: "The Russian parts are designed to standards that are less stringent than the Germans' and they are being used out of context in a design where they are exposed to inappropriate stresses," the document says. It goes on to claim that "much of the necessary work for Bushehr is outside the competence of the Russian consulting engineers," who consider the project a "holiday."

What's ironic about this article is that Fox types no doubt view the shoddy-sounding state of Iran's nuclear-energy program as a force multiplier to add to Iran's alleged development of nuclear weapons. Operating in synergy, theoretically they should make the case for attacking Iran. To others though, Iran's possible nuclear-energy troubles eclipse the nuclear weapons threat. Thus is Iran reduced from malevolent to incompetent and not worth attacking. Given enough time, its nuclear program may well blow itself up. 

Iran's first nuclear power plant, built by Russia, will be connected to the national grid in late August, atomic chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani told the Arabic-language network Al-Alam on Sunday. "The test to reach 40 percent of the plant's power capacity has been done successfully... God willing, we will be able to commission the plant by the end of Ramadan with an initial production" of the same amount, Abbasi Davani said. He estimated that the plant would reach its "full capacity of 1,000 megawatts" in late November or early December.

The connection of the Bushehr plant in southern Iran to the national grid, originally scheduled for the end of 2010, has been been delayed several times because of technical problems. The plant was started up in November 2010 but repeated technical problems delayed its operation, leading to the removal of its fuel in March. Russia has blamed the delays on Iran for forcing its engineers to work with outdated parts in the facility, while the latest delay in March was pinned on wear and tear at the plant.

Construction of the plant started in the 1970s with the help of German company Siemens, which quit the project after the 1979 Islamic revolution over concerns about nuclear proliferation. In 1994, Russia agreed to complete the plant and provide fuel for it, with the supply deal committing Iran to returning the spent fuel, amid Western concerns over the Islamic republic's controversial uranium enrichment programme. Abbasi Davani's remarks come on the eve of a scheduled visit by Security Council of Russia's secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who will hold talks with his Iranian counterpart Saeed Jalili and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

will an oil embargo work? Not as far as oil analyst Paul Stevens of London-based Chatham House is concerned. "If you look at history, oil embargoes have never, ever worked and never, ever been effective…so it's not going to work," he said. "It's just going to cause a great deal of disruption."

Stevens says EU countries that depend on Iranian oil can find new suppliers - like the Gulf states. But Iran may also find new buyers for its oil in Asia.

Iranian officials have downplayed the impact of Western measures - including new U.S. sanctions that could reduce Iran's ability to sell oil and other exports.  But Tehran also has threatened to close the critically important Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Iran is making headway towards rolling out advanced uranium enrichment machines that could speed up its production of nuclear reactor fuel as well as weapons-grade material if, as the West fears, it ultimately tries to assemble atomic bombs.   But it remains unclear whether Tehran, under increasingly strict international sanctions that crimp its ability to import key components, can manufacture the machines in industrial-scale numbers that would revolutionize its enrichment activity.

For years, Tehran has been seeking to replace the breakdown-prone 1970s vintage model of centrifuge it now uses to refine uranium, but the changeover has been hampered by sanctions restricting access to vital components, analysts say.

In a sign the Islamic state may now be making some progress, a UN nuclear watchdog report says Iran has begun installing two newer versions for larger-scale testing at a research and development site near the central city of Natanz.   The confidential report, obtained by Reuters on Friday, says Iran informed the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in June that it had also started to operate 54 of these more advanced machines on an experimental basis.

Iran celebrated the official opening of the nation's first nuclear power plant today, a worrisome milestone for Western critics of the Iranian nuclear program.

Iranian state news said. The plant has been under construction by a Russian company for nearly two decades.

Today State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the official opening of the Bushehr plant was still "troubling" since Iran is now the only country in the world with an operating nuclear reactor that has not ratified the international Convention on Nuclear Safety.

Over the years, we’ve heard rumblings about the dwindling supply of precious Saudi oil. Now it’s becoming apparent that not only are they beginning to run dry, they’ve been grossly overstating what they already had (by 40% to be precise).

This is alarming if not just for the fact that global peak oil (whilst not being officially acknowledged) is already slowing production in the major oil exporting countries. Saddad al-Husseini, the former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, revealed that the Kingdom’s oil capacity “will have hit its highest point by 2012″.

However, realists familiar with the engineering reports are saying we hit peak oil two years ago and have simply been going off articifially inflated reserve estimates

The head of the United Nations nuclear agency today stressed that all States must comply with their obligations under the international nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty, naming Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Syria as countries that are not in full compliance. “My approach to nuclear verification since taking up office in December 2009 has been very straightforward – all safeguards agreements between Member States and the Agency, and other relevant obligations such as UN Security Council resolutions, should be implemented fully,” said Yukiya Amano, the Director General the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable the agency to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,” Mr. Amano said in his keynote address to the three-day 23rd UN Conference on Disarmament Issues in Matsumoto, Japan. He urged Iran to move towards the full implementation of all relevant obligations to build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

A senior Iranian lawmaker stressed that Tehran will block its oil supplies to the European Union for the next 5 to 15 years as part of its strategy to punish the EU for its oil ban against Tehran.

"We will change the threat into an opportunity for Iran and cut Iran's oil supplies to the Europeans for five to 15 years," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Karim Abedi told FNA on Sunday.

He pointed to a bill drafted in the parliament to cut oil exports to the EU, and noted, "We will not leave enemies' sanctions unanswered and we will impose other sanctions on them in addition to closing Iran's oil supplies to Europe." Abedi also said that Iran will use the banned oil in its refineries and petrochemical complexes to turn it into more valuable products.

This rather mundane looking letter from 2000 talks about a number of concerns going on with the IAEA at that time. One concern was the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran. “Indications that Russia’s efforts to complete the Bushehr reactor in Iran are plagued with severe safety considerations as witnessed by periodic visits by IAEA experts. ” Recently a whistleblower told that the Bushehr plant was a safety disaster and that it was hobbled together with disparate parts by second string engineers. The US had concerns about the lack of safety assistance at the Mayak nuclear site in Russia. This is similar to the Hanford nuclear site in the US and houses large amounts of volatile nuclear waste. Mayak was the site of an INES level 6 disaster in 1957 that sent a plume of highly radioactive cesium 137 and stronium 90 over a populated area nearby.  This disaster happened due to loss of cooling on a waste tank.

The letter also talked about the financial constraint of needing to spend $3 million dollars to do mandated oversight at the Rokkasho Mura nuclear waste facility in Japan. It also spoke of a severe budget crisis by 2001 as countries were not putting more funding into the IAEA as the demands on the agency were increasing. The 2009 accounting of the IAEA’s budget.

the nuclear program became the main subject of the first European tourney of Foreign Minister Ali Akber Salehi.

As part of the tourney, Salehi visited the capital of Slovenia Ljubljana and also Vienna, where he talked to his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger and general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano. At the press conference in Ljubljana and Vienna, the head of the Iranian delegation made it clear that Iran is committed to the Nuclear Weapon Nonproliferation Treaty but will never yield its legal rights for implementation of the peaceful nuclear program

It is not a secret that most economic problems and deprivations of the population of the country are caused by sanctions against our state over the development of nuclear industry. The paradox is that we have already got used to the sanctions, which had been place against us for already 21 years.

Energy leaders from Russia and America have made a "commitment to supporting the safe and secure expansion of civil nuclear energy" on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference.    Officials from the US Department of Energy and Russia's Rosatom signed what the US side called a "joint statement on strategic direction of US-Russia nuclear cooperation." US energy secretary Stephen Chu said it was a milestone for the two nuclear energy pioneers. They were long separated by their opposition during the Cold War, but now share a leading role in nuclear security and disarmament.

Chu said in his address to the conference that nuclear energy's role grows more valuable as we confront a changing climate, increasing energy demand and a struggling economy. "At the same time, Fukushima reminds us that nuclear safety and security require continued vigilance." He noted the agreements made by Russia and the USA to reduce their weapons stockpiles and the importance of the widest possible sign-up to the framework of international conventions supporting the safe use of nuclear energy.   Russian nuclear energy chief Sergei Kiriyenko focused comments on his country's efforts to help new nations enjoy the benefits of nuclear energy. Their entrance to the field raises "questions of nuclear safety, infrastructure, creation of licensing and safety oversight and development of a clear legal framework in accordance with the requirements and recommendations of the IAEA," he said.  

Kiriyenko noted Russia's cooperation towards nuclear build with Bangladesh, Belarus, Nigeria and Vietnam. "In the last year," he said, "we have proposed a new model of cooperation.. based on the principle of 'build-speak-operate'." The 'speak' component would refer to the lending of specific Russian expertise in the areas of law and regulation. This would come in addition to extensive and expanding lines of support from the IAEA. He said that "experience in this model confirms that this scheme can provide a higher level of safety and operational success."   The nuclear project in Turkey was said to be the first example of this mode of cooperation: Russia will build, own and operate a four-unit power plant at Akkuyu, supplying the state utility with electricity at a fixed price for at least 15 years. Rosatom will initially own 100% of the project and it intends to retain at least 51% in the long term.

Iran's first nuclear power station has suffered string of delays * Latest deadline, this month, to be missed, lawmakers say * Delay will be embarrassment for both Iran and Russia TEHRAN, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Iran's first nuclear power station will not start working this month as planned, several parliamentarians were quoted as saying on Monday, blaming Russian builders for the latest delay in a project Tehran hopes will showcase its peaceful atomic aims. Members of a parliamentary committee set up to examine the status of the Bushehr plant on Iran's Gulf coast said costs had spiralled but did not say why the latest delay had happened. "The commissioning of the plant within the time frame promised by the officials will not be possible and it is still far from getting linked to the national electricity grid," lawmaker Asgar Jalalian told Aftab Yazd daily.

The latest delay comes a year after fuel rods were transported into the reactor building amid great media fanfare. Iran hoped to show the world it had joined the nuclear club despite sanctions imposed by countries that fear it is seeking nuclear weapons. It says its nuclear programme is peaceful. The fuel was not loaded into the reactor until October and then it had to be removed due to fears that metal particles from nearly 30-year old equipment used in the construction of the reactor core had contaminated the fuel. Further delays could be an embarrassment not only to Iranian politicians who have made Bushehr the showpiece of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but also for Russia which would like to export more of its nuclear know-how to emerging economies.   Continued...

The following cable by John Beyrle, US Ambassador to Russia who was the US Ambassador to Bulgaria before going to Moscow, dated April 3, 2009, was released Thursday by WikiLeaks and their Bulgarian partner Bivol.bg.

Subject: Russia's Atomstroyexport Cannot Fulfill Existing International Nuclear Energy Contracts, But Seeks New OnesOrigin Embassy Moscow (Russia)Cable time Fri, 3 Apr 2009 04:02 UTCClassification UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYSource http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/04/09MOSCOW851.htmlRelease timeWed, 24 Aug 2011 01:00 UTC -->History First published on Wed, 24 Aug 2011 03:21 UTC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000851 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KNNP [Nuclear Non-Proliferation] BTIO [Trade and Investment Opportunities] ETRD [Foreign Trade] ETTC [Trade and Technology Controls] ENRG [Energy and Power] TRGY [Energy Technology] PREL [External Political Relations] ECON [Economic Conditions] RS [Russia; Wrangel Islands]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) plans to build 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years spending an estimated $7 billion on each plant. The $112 billion investment, which includes capacity to become a regional exporter of electricity, will provide one-fifth of the Kingdom’s electricity for industrial and residential use and, critically, for desalinization of sea water.

dom’s electricity for industrial and residential use and, critically, for desalinization of sea water.

This past April, the Saudi government announced the development of a nuclear city to train and house the technical workforce that will be needed to achieve these ambitions. It is clear that KSA’s plans for spending its sovereign wealth fund will be mostly focused on the home front. At the same time, a former Saudi ambassador to the United States , Prince Turki al-Faisal (served 2005-2006), has warned that a regional nuclear arms race could start if Iran does not curb its nuclear efforts. He told the Wall Street Journal on July 20, “It is in our interest that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, for their doing so would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies that could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences.”

Nuclear power is no magic solution, argues Pervez Hoodbhoy — it's not safe, or cheap, and it leads to weapons programmes. A string of energy-starved developing countries have looked at nuclear power as the magic solution. No oil, no gas, no coal needed – it's a fuel with zero air pollution or carbon dioxide emissions. High-tech and prestigious, it was seen as relatively safe. But then Fukushima came along. The disaster's global psychological impact exceeded Chernobyl's, and left a world that's now unsure if nuclear electricity is the answe

Core concerns The fire that followed the failure of emergency generators at the Daiichi nuclear complex raised the terrifying prospect of radiation leaking and spreading. The core of the Unit 1 reactor melted, and spent nuclear fuel, stored under pools of water, sprang to life as cooling pumps stopped. Fukushima's nuclear reactors had been built to withstand the worst, including earthquakes and tsunamis. Sensors successfully shut down the reactors, but when a wall of water 30 feet high crashed over the 20-foot protective concrete walls, electrical power, essential for cooling, was lost. The plume of radiation reached as far as Canada. Closer, it was far worse. Japan knows that swathes of its territory will be contaminated, perhaps uninhabitable, for the rest of the century. In July, for example, beef, vegetables, and ocean fish sold in supermarkets were found to have radioactive caesium in doses several times the safe level. [1]

The Japanese have been careful. In the country of the hibakusha (surviving victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), all reactors go through closer scrutiny than anywhere else. But this clearly wasn't enough. Other highly developed countries — Canada, Russia, UK, and US — have also seen serious reactor accidents. What does this mean for a typical developing country? There, radiation dangers and reactor safety have yet to enter public debate. Regulatory mechanisms are strictly controlled by the authorities, citing national security reasons. And individuals or nongovernmental organisations are forbidden from monitoring radiation levels near any nuclear facility. Poor and powerless village communities in India and Pakistan, that have suffered health effects from uranium and thorium mining, have been forced to withdraw their court cases.

Vienna, Sept 14, IRNA – Non-Aligned Movement in a statement read out at the meeting of International Atomic Energy Board of Governors on Wednesday underlined countries’ indisputable right to the development, research and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The statement read by Egyptian envoy Khaled Sham’e said that NAM believes that all countries are entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy without any discrimination. Therefore, no country should be deprived of nuclear development for peaceful purposes. The countries’ decisions in the nuclear field such as Iran’s policies on fuel cycle should be respected, it noted.

NAM recognizes International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the only qualified authority to verify commitment of the member states to the Safeguard Agreement and believes that it should not come under pressure in the process, the statement said. NAM considers building a region free of nuclear weapon in the Middle East as a positive step in line with the materialization of global nuclear disarmament and will extend its support to this end.

European Union governments have reached a preliminary agreement to ban imports of Iranian crude to the EU but have yet to decide when such an embargo would be put in place, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. Diplomats said that EU envoys held talks on the issue in the last days of December and that any objections to the idea, notably from Greece, were dropped. 'A lot of progress has been made,' one EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'The principle of an oil embargo is agreed. It is not being debated anymore.'

An Iranian lawmaker says his parliament has postponed vote on a bill requiring the government to immediately halt crude oil sales to Europe. The ban would be a response to the EU's decision to stop importing Iranian oil and freeze assets of its central bank.

Lawmaker Ali Adiani Rad is quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying lawmakers need experts' views before they vote on the ban. Many Iranian officials have called for an immediate ban on oil exports to the European bloc before the EU's ban goes into full effect in July.