The answer matters considerably, as Iran, Israel, and the P5+1 will make decisions this year, based in part on their assessment of risk, about the fate of current efforts to negotiate a comprehensive crisis settlement.

In the policy world, there are two opposing views being expressed, whether they are informed by the facts on the ground in Iran–or not.

Advocates of stepped-up diplomacy with Iran argue that Iran, by not accumulating 20%-enriched EUP from the Fordo enrichment plant as UF6 but instead converting some of it to U3O8, is signaling to the powers its willingness to compromise and de-escalate the crisis. In U3O8 form, they argue, the material would be less directly usable should Iran want to dash to a bomb, because Iran would have difficulty reconverting the oxide to UF6, especially if the oxide had been fabricated into finished research-reactor fuel.

Iran’s determined adversaries assert to the contrary that there is no nonproliferation benefit in Iran converting its 20%-enriched Fordo output to U3O8 because Iran could reconvert the material back to UF6 easily and in a hurry.

Iran has described its converting of the UF6 into U3O8 as a confidence-building measure.

U3O8 and Israel’s ‘Red Line’

This week, a former Israeli intelligence official claimed that Iran could within a few days reconvert its U3O8 back to UF6, implying that Iran has already crossed a “red line” set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu–the production of enough 20%-enriched uranium which could be enriched to weapon-grade and fashioned into a nuclear weapon. Three days later, in a Reuters interview alerting the outside world it is prepared to continue talking with the P5+1, an Iranian negotiator made known that Iran intends to continue converting the Fordo product to U3O8 for use as fuel for five research reactors. These reactors presumably would include the existing Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) plus four more reactors that, according to Iranian press reports  in 2012, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had ordered to be built. Whether or not Iran ever builds those four reactors, they provide Iran a rationale to continue enriching uranium to 20% and converting the EUP to U3O8. There is also the research reactor at Arak, but it will not require 20%-enriched uranium to operate when it is finished.

As of late February, the last time when the IAEA reported to the Board of Governors on safeguards implementation in Iran, the status of Iran’s inventory of 20%-enriched uranium produced at Fordo was this, as I described in a post earlier this month:

After commencing with the enrichment of uranium to 20% U-235 in early 2010, Iran accumulated about 150 kilograms of EUP at this enrichment by the end of 2011, and it crossed the 200 kg threshold sometime in the middle of 2012.  The latest report from the IAEA in February says that Iran had produced 280 kg of UF6 enriched to 20% U-235, of which 167  kg was still in the form of UF6. Virtually all of the rest has been introduced into the reconversion plant to produce U3O8 for fuel fabrication. When the IAEA accounted for Iran’s declared activities in February, the plant had produced U3O8 containing 50 kg of uranium, leaving about 60 kg of uranium in the process inventory. According to the IAEA data, the current rate of production of feedstock at this enrichment level in its centrifuges is about 15 kg per month.  

By late February, then, Iran had processed about 110 kg of its accumulated UF6 inventory enriched to 20% into U3O8 and other intermediary chemical states. At current rates of production at the Fordo enrichment plant and chemical processing facilities at Esfahan, by the end of this year Iran might accumulate a U3O8 inventory containing approximately 175 kg U enriched to 20% U-235–but only if it is assumed that all the uranium fed into the conversion line would be converted to U3O8. Data from the February IAEA report suggest that the real conversion factor from UF6 to U3O8 is far less.

According to Susan Voss based on data in IAEA reports on Iran’s safeguards implementation Iran has lost 61% of its uranium in feed material during the conversion of UF6 to U3O8 for the TRR.

Olli Heinonen however believes Iran’s present conversion factor is higher.

The IAEA reports provide the amount of UF6 moved (and “released”, which means the cutting of the IAEA seals from the UF6 cylinders) to [Iran's Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant] but it does not give a full breakdown for material in each step of the process. The reports give the amount of U3O8 produced at certain point of time, which is just one part of the material balance equation. There are all the reasons to believe that the Iranian engineers, with two decades of experience on uranium conversion, can achieve a better yield than 39 %. In addition, 20 % enriched uranium is valuable material. Like the other fuel producers, [Iran has] a small process, at least on the drawing board, to recover uranium from the wastes (albeit only a few per cent of material should end up in wastes).

In a statement before the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv on April 22, Amos Yadlin, former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence  Directorate, asserted that Iran in “less than a week” could convert its 20%-enriched U3O8 into bomb-grade “nuclear material” for a weapon.

In separate comments made to Israeli radio, Yadlin appeared to suggest that right now 80 kg had been processed into U3O8 and was therefore available to be reconverted to UF6.

Iran’s Capabilities and Options

We may assume that Yadlin’s remarks in some quarters will be interpreted to drive a stake into the heart of any forthcoming compromise deal with Iran, challenging those who argue that Iran has demonstrated self-restraint in not stockpiling 20%-enriched UF6. Iran’s capabilities for reconverting the 20%-enriched U3O8 back into UF6 feedstock for nuclear weapons fuel therefore need to be understood and the following questions need to be answered: 

Does Iran now have the means to reconvert its U3O8 to UF6?

Yes. Do not be confused by the terms conversion and reconversion. I have heard it said: “Iran can convert the Fordo enriched uranium from UF6 to oxide but it cannot reconvert the oxide back to UF6.” Not true. The chemical processes corresponding to “conversion” and “reconversion” are more or less identical. Iran has lots of experience converting its uranium ore concentrates to UF6, and Iran can likewise convert U3O8 obtained from UF6 back into UF6. In both cases, the feedstock for conversion is U3O8. In the first instance, it is milled from natural uranium ore. In the second, the feedstock is oxide that has been converted back from UF6 which was previously enriched.

How would Iran process its U3O8 into UF6?

Iran would have a number of options, but there are two basic ones.  They principally differ in how to convert U3O8 to the intermediate product UO2. To convert the UO2 to UF6, the process would be the same for both options.

One option would be to reconvert U3O8 into UO2 using a process similar or identical to that used at Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Esfahan, which Iran has operated to produce its UF6 feedstock for centrifuge plants at Natanz and Fordo. The U3O8 would be dissolved in nitric acid, producing an aqueous solution of uranyl nitrate hexahydrate [UO2(NO3)2 . 6H2O]. In some versions, this would then be mixed with tributyl phosphate to remove the uranium in the form of uranyl nitrate. The nitrate can be converted to UO3 either by evaporation or treatment with ammonia. The UO3 is in turn converted to UO2 in fluidized reactors by reduction with ammonia gas at high temperatures.

A second option would be a dry process to expose the U3O8 to very high temperatures in the presence of hydrogen gas. The endothermic reaction of U3O8 with H2 would result in UO2 and water. It is likely that Iran has studied and may have mastered this kind of process at laboratory scale. If Iran has mastered it, less time may be required to reconvert the U3O8 than by using a wet process, because fewer steps would be needed. Iran might favor a dry process route because its enriched U3O8 contains few or no impurities, obviating the need to do solvent extraction. The impurities, such as oxidizing metals, would have been already removed at UCF prior to enrichment of the NATU at Fordo.

For both wet and dry options, after the material is converted to UO2, it would be reacted with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (AHF) to produce UF4, and the UF4 would in turn be fluorinated to result in UF6.

Iran has investigated several process chemical options for doing this since the 1980s. Most of the processes have been applied elsewhere in the world, and in all the nuclear weapon states, beginning in the 1940s, and they are well-known.  In addition to experience gained at UCF since the mid-2000s, Iran a decade before operated a small chemical conversion lab to produce UF6, and Iranian scientists have also worked on uranium conversion chemistry in its so-called “Green Salt Project.”

Where would Iran do the U3O8-UF6 reconversion?

In theory, Iran could use its existing and declared conversion infrastructure at Esfahan to convert the U3O8 beginning with nitric acid dissolution and ending with production of UF6 gas. In practice, because any re-conversion in a safeguarded facility of a discrete inventory of previously enriched U3O8 would, if detected or declared, prompt IAEA inspectors’ concerns (the UCF is routinely monitored), reconversion would more likely take place in an undeclared facility dedicated to process enriched U3O8.

Should Iran choose to reconvert the U3O8, it would have other motivations to do it in a dedicated, small installation. The geometries of such a facility could be designed to minimize the risk of a criticality accident, which could occur during the processing of 20%-enriched feedstock. At a bulk-handling facility such as UCF, designed to process NATU, criticality management would be more challenging, and the risk of an accident, especially if enriched uranium were converted under duress, would be greater. The kind of issues Iran would face are illustrated here.

A small facility would be best to permit batch processing, allowing personnel to most effectively control off-gas and ventilation systems needed to cope with volatile hydrogen and fluorine gases involved in the conversion of UO2 to UF6. Iran might use a fairly simple process, similar to that used at the JCO fuel processing plant in Japan, which in 1999 suffered a criticality accident when buckets filled with uranium solutions were carelessly handled by personnel.

How much time would Iran require to reconvert the enriched U3O8 to UF6?

Yadlin, cited as having told the Institute for National Security Studies that in Iran the reconversion of U3O8 to produce bomb fuel could be “completed in less than a week,” walked back this estimate in a subsequent radio interview to “between one and two weeks.” That’s more realistic. Experience from the uranium conversion industry and R&D sector outside Iran would suggest that Iran might be able to convert about 100 kg of U3O8 to UF6 in about two weeks–provided, however, that the work was carried out in a small facility using a dry process without purification, whereby perhaps three batches would be consecutively processed. Use of other processes and a larger installation might lengthen the time required to reconvert the material. Regardless of whether Iran would select a wet or dry process, the most time-critical process step would likely be the production of UF4 from UO2 because of the comparatively slow reaction time for AHF and UO2.

The IAEA Safeguards Glossary includes a table for estimated material conversion times to produce finished nuclear weapon metal fuel components using various fissile material feedstocks. Conversion time is defined as:

the time required to convert different forms of nuclear material to the metallic components of a nuclear explosive device. Conversion time does not include the time required to transport diverted material to the conversion facility or to assemble the device, or any subsequent period. The diversion activity is assumed to be part of a planned sequence of actions chosen to give a high probability of success in manufacturing one or more nuclear explosive devices with minimal risk of discovery until at least one such device is manufactured.

For “U-233 oxide and other pure U compounds,” the conversion time is given by the IAEA as “order of weeks (1-3).” A footnote specifies that for pure compounds it would be closer to one week and for “mixtures and scrap” material it would be closer to 3 weeks. This implies that to avoid detection a determined proliferator should take no more than three weeks to process pure uranium oxide into finished metal components.

If Iran processes its 20%-enriched U3O8 into fuel for the TRR–which Iran says it is doing and IAEA reports have verified–wouldn’t that serve as an effective proliferation barrier?

If Iran uses 20%-enriched U3O8 to make fuel for the TRR, converting that fuel material back to UF6 might require just a few more days than is needed to reconvert U3O8 powder.

The fuel for TRR consists of aluminum plates containing U3O8-Al fuel in a matrix. Iran would probably make this fuel using hot presses to bind the fuel material and the aluminum. To get at the U3O8 after fuel is fabricated but not yet irradiated, Iran could dissolve the fuel in a stainless steel vessel containing a caustic solution like sodium hydroxide, filter the mixture, and then dry and recover the oxide. Iran would have to be careful in handling the large amount of hydrogen gas that would be generated by dissolving the fuel.

Were the U3O8 to be fabricated instead into ceramic fuel using a sintering process for other reactor types, that fuel would be more difficult to break down and dissolve and it would potentially take longer to react with fluorine. Were Iran at some point in the future to make a deal with foreign governments and fuel suppliers including the supply TRR-type fuel, the proliferation barrier against diversion of enriched fresh fuel would be strengthened if silicide fuel were required instead of U3O8-Al fuel, because the silicide would be more difficult to dissolve.

The Bottom Line

Iran could process its entire inventory of 20%-enriched U3O8 to produce UF6 in a matter of a few weeks, the fruit of Iran’s cumulative nuclear chemistry R&D and industrial-scale experience over three decades. There are uncertainties about how great Iran’s production losses would be should it decide to reconvert the material.

An inventory of 20%-enriched uranium in Iran consisting of U3O8 reconverted from output from the safefguarded Fordo enrichment plant would be under IAEA safeguards. If it were associated with the UCF, it would be subject to physical inventory verification (PIV); if collected in small containers, it would likely be put under seal. The conversion of a portion of Iran’s U3O8 inventory into UF6 and subsequent re-enrichment could in theory be built into any of a number of break-out scenarios. How Iran would in fact behave can only be a matter of conjecture. Were Iran to inform the IAEA it intended to remove seals or reconvert the material into UF6, that step would immediately precipitate a crisis. If Iran were ever to decide to divert safeguarded enriched uranium to make a nuclear explosive device,  in addition to the risks of detection which would pertain to that action,  it would have to consider whether there would be any advantage in reconverting any of the U3O8 to UF6.

On the occasion of Chung Mong-joon’s appearance at the 2013 Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington last week, I doubt that Dr. Chung had scheduled audiences with either John Kerry or Yukiya Amano, but it would be a fair guess that both the U.S. Department of State and the IAEA paid very close attention to what MJ had to say on April 9.

These bits, which I excerpt from the transcript of his remarks, must have caught the attention of people in Washington who are negotiating with the ROK on nuclear cooperation right now, as well as those in Vienna who are responsible for verifying the ROK’s peaceful-use credentials under the IAEA Additional Protocol:

Facing an extraordinary threat to national security, South Korea may exercise the right to withdraw from the  NPT as stipulated in Article X of the treaty. South Korea would then match North Korea’s nuclear program step by step, while committing to stop if North Korea stops.

South Korea should be given this leeway as a law-abiding member of the global community who is threatened by a nuclear rogue state.

The alliance has failed to stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. Telling us not to consider any nuclear weapons option is tantamount to telling us to simply surrender.

During the coming week, the U.S. and the ROK will again attack the crux that since 2011 has bedeviled the negotiation of a new bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement: Seoul’s insistance that Washington provide it programmatic approval to enrich uranium and extract both plutonium and uranium from thousands of tons of spent fuel that, under the terms of the 1974 bilateral agreement that will expire next March, are defined as U.S.-origin and are therefore subject to U.S. consent. Until now, the U.S. Department of State has been unwilling to say yes to South Korea’s request.

MJ’s remarks last week don’t have to change that state of affairs. After all, it is quite clear–as a number of people who objected that Carnegie gave MJ an audience during our conference kept telling me–that Dr. Chung’s views do not represent mainstream Korean thinking, that the government of Park Geun-hye has not associated itself with MJ’s opinions, and that, just before MJ arrived in Washington to give his statement, a delegation of  lawmakers from the ROK National Assembly, representing both government and opposition parties, told U.S. Congressional counterparts that they didn’t agree with MJ either. If that’s not enough, keep in mind that during the entire negotiation on the 123 agreement, the ROK government has kept to its script that the negotiation has nothing to do with North Korea and nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

The U.S.-ROK 123 Context

In the run-up to Park’s state visit to Washington next month, Bob Einhorn’s team at the State Department and a bevy of NSC staffers are now preparing for what looks like what might be an interagency-guided President-to-President decision on this matter. Over the last month or so, I have heard in some quarters that, to demonstrate solidarity with what Park’s political advisers are telling the White House is America’s most steadfast ally in the region, the U.S. at the most senior level might be prepared to accomodate Seoul on enrichment and reprocessing, swayed ultimately by the Korean argument that in 1988 Washington had made the same concession to Tokyo.

What I’ll call here the “nonproliferators” among U.S. officials weighing in on this don’t want to do that. If they hold sway, as they have during the last two years, what might they tell their Korean counterparts after they frame MJ’s words of wisdom? I could imagine they might prepare an argument that goes something like this:

You know that the U.S. Congress has to approve this agreement. It’s no secret that until now people have assumed that, especially given all the force of persuasion that Korea has brought to bear on Capitol Hill, the Congress would never stand in the way of a draft bilateral agreement that comes down from Park and Obama. But after MJ leaves Washington, you can also assume that the transcript of his remarks will be circulated to each and every Senator and Congressman up there. When they read that, they’ll never approve a 123 agreement that says in effect that the U.S. will give a green light to South Korea for enrichment and reprocessing [ENR] as long as there are significant voices out there urging South Korea to consider the “option” to match North Korea’s nuclear development. If they want to match Pyongyang, they will have to enrich uranium and separate plutonium outside of IAEA safeguards. So if you want an agreement that lets you enrich and reprocess, you’ll have to convince the Congress. You already know what a couple of senior people at State have told lawmakers about what conditions should be in any new 123 agreement we negotiate. Those views are certainly not U.S. policy, but that doesn’t mean Congressmen will ignore them.

In fact, of course, it’s more complicated than that. The ROK has argued that only a fraction of the spent fuel in Korea is subject to U.S. consent rights, and the Korea 123 negotiation is not intended to deny Seoul’s right to ENR under NPT Article IV.

But when state visits are on the horizon, high politics can get stratospheric, stuff gets simplified, and some U.S. lawmakers might get the notion that handing over the keys to all that nuclear material while people are thinking about a nuclear “option” might not be the best way to proceed. The ROK narrative, on the other hand, is that MJ is a marginal figure and that the negotiation is only about South Korea’s civilian nuclear program.

The IAEA Context

IAEA DG Yukiya Amano (who led off the Carnegie conference on the morning of April 8) is, as is well known, not negotiating a 123 agreement with anyone just yet, he doesn’t have to worry about whether the U.S.-ROK mutual defense treaty holds, and he hasn’t seen pictures of a 30-something in a uniform pointing a swagger stick in the direction of Vienna followed by pictures of ballistic missiles being fired off to land on the Hofburg.

Amano’s staffers might be interested in what MJ has to say nonetheless, because they’re busy implementing safeguards in the ROK under the State-Level Approach.

Since 2008, the IAEA, following verification of nuclear activities subject to the ROK’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and Additional Protocol (AP), has annually provided South Korea a so-called “broader conclusion” which attests that “all nuclear materials remained in peaceful activities” during the preceding calendar year. The ROK has a broader conclusion under the most current Safeguards Implementation Report.

After the ROK signed the AP in 1999, it took eight years for the IAEA to get to a broader conclusion. That was in part because the IAEA had found that a tiny amount of plutonium had been generated by irradiating depleted uranium in a reactor and then extracted in a hot cell, and that a small amount of highly enriched uranium had been produced with a laser. It also took awhile for the IAEA to reconstruct the history of the ROK’s nuclear R&D program. That included secret activities authorized by President Park Chung-hee. These, if they had not been nipped in the bud by the U.S., might have gotten Seoul into a game of chicken with Washington over security guarantees sometime during the 1980s. There was also the little detail that Korean activities which were exposed under the AP as ex post facto violations of the ROK’s safeguards obligations involved materials that had been previously exempted from IAEA safeguards. The IAEA isn’t too happy when this happens. There were also some safeguards issues concerning plans by the ROK to move forward on pyroprocessing work in the early 2000s more quickly than the IAEA saw fit. On balance, the ROK during the last three decades has had a lot of nuclear R&D on its plate, and the IAEA has been challenged to keep track of it.

MJ took the floor at the Carnegie conference in the middle of a discussion between the IAEA and member states about plans at the agency to extend the scope of the SLA. This is what it is about. You can check out the links in the article to explore what kind of things might be considered as state-level factors under the SLA. That brings us to Dr. Chung. What he had to tell us last week might be included in what the IAEA Department of Safeguards describes as “open and other sources” of information used to obtain a “holistic appreciation” of a country’s nuclear program.

Of course, it is up to IAEA safeguards personnel in Operations A and their superiors alone to decide whether Dr Chung’s Carnegie comments on April 9 have any relevance to a discussion of the ROK’s “broader conclusion.” I would argue that the SLA would probably compel the Department of Safeguards to include this information and consider it in their internal deliberations prior to making any determinations.

The real question however is how the IAEA would interpret and contextualize what Dr. Chung had to say.

Beforehand–on Monday and Tuesday–we at the Carnegie Endowment will be putting on the 2013 version of the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference. And at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 9, we’ll give the floor to Chung Mong-joon, a seven-year member of the Korean National Assembly and former Chairman of Korea’s Grand National Party.

I saw Chung Mong-joon in Seoul in February on occasion of the Asan 2013 Nuclear Forum, for which he served as Honorary Chairman. A couple days before, North Korea had carried out its third nuclear test. En route to Seoul for the conference, we learned that the agenda of the meeting would be changed to reflect the urgency of Pyongyang’s escalation of its nuclear threats.

Chung and Bob Gallucci opened the Asan Conference on February 19. The total absence of Gallucci’s usual light touch in his remarks set the tone of the conference and, following up, Chung rubbed it in for all who cared to listen: The U.S. must re-deploy theater nuclear weapons on South Korean territory “because the threat of a counter nuclear force is the only thing that will discourage North Korea from developing its nuclear arsenal.” Beyond that, he said, the U.S.-ROK alliance “has been an abject failure” leading some South Koreans to conclude that South Korea would never be able to negotiate at eye-level with North Korea unless it had its own nuclear deterrent.

So I have a few questions that I hope find answers during and around Chung Mong-joon’s appearance on Tuesday:

• Who, exactly, really advocates South Korea having nuclear weapons?
• Has the South Korean strategic community seriously explored what having nuclear weapons would mean for South Korea?
• What would be South Korea’s path to obtaining nuclear weapons?
• What would be the cost-benefit calculus?
• Doesn’t the relatively nonplussed response of ROK citizens to the North’s recent escalation imply instead that they are not intimidated and therefore are not prepared to take the risks associated with reaching for nuclear weapons?

Then there’s the issue of the ongoing nuclear cooperation agreement negotiation.

The official South Korean view is that this negotiation has nothing to do with North Korea and with nuclear weapons. I’m not satisfied that’s true.

Both parties agree on nearly all of the text for a new agreement but there are serious differences over one major issue: South Korea wants the United States to give it carte blanche approval to pyroprocess spent fuel and enrich uranium covered by U.S. consent rights under the current agreement which expires next year.

The U.S. so far is not prepared to agree to this.

The more-or-less official reason for the U.S. position is threefold: 1.) The U.S. wants to discourage the spread of enrichment and reprocessing (including pyroprocessing) capabilities beyond countries which already are deploying them; 2.) enrichment and pyroprocessing by the ROK would be contrary to the 1992 agreement by both Korean states not to do that on their territories; and 3.) Reprocessing and enrichment in South Korea would exacerbate tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region.

From Washington’s point of view, reason 1. looks straightforward: If the ROK is given programatic approval to reprocess and enrich, other states will be encouraged to follow suit.

Reason 2. is more of a problem–including for South Korea. Seoul’s 1992 no-enrichment and no-reprocessing pledge linked these sensitive nuclear technologies to concern about nuclear weapons proliferation. South Korean advocates can press their case for enrichment and reprocessing now because North Korea violated its pledge and is using sensitive fuel processing technology to make nuclear weapons.

Then there is reason 3: “Increased tension on the Korean peninsula and in the region.” That sounds like a State Department formula intended to cover any unpleasant development. What does it really mean? Does it include residual U.S. concern about the absoluteness of South Korea’s NPT commitment? A few people who will not speak for the record will express the view that it does. Others may disagree.

Carnegie’s Doug Paal will lead the discussion after Chung Mong-joon’s remarks on Tuesday morning. Perhaps we’ll get authoritative answers to these questions then and throughout the conference.

But if such a scheme is ambitious, then the gambit put forth this week by Peter Jenkins and Yousaf Butt must be categorized as minimalist. Their proposal was hatched on a Reuters blog on Thursday.

The bottom line would be that if the P5+1 aims to reduce Iran’s stockpile of UF6 enriched to 20% U-235, now being churned out at Iran’s underground Fordow site, then the powers should offer Iran to help it convert this inventory into uranium metal and process it into fuel plates for the TRR reactor. The driver behind this idea is that the IAEA has documented that Iran has continued to produce more and more 20% EUP, but also that it has dedicated a large share of that output to the production of U3O8, which is what Iran right now has to work with if it want to produce TRR fuel.

The key passage seems to be this:

But Iran appears to be having some technical problems in doing the conversion – especially in fabricating the enriched uranium fuel plates. So the world powers could encourage the IAEA to assist Iran in this conversion and subsequent fuel plate fabrication. Iran would get fuel for its reactor and, in the process, turn potential bomb fuel into a safer form.

We’ve been all over the TRR before, for five years, in fact. Are the facts on the ground right now any different than they were in 2009? Does a “TRR deal” today make any sense?

Apart from the fussy nit that what is happening in Iran is the re-conversion of the UF6 to oxide, followed by a separate process of using U3O8 product to manufacture fuel the TRR reactor, and what looks like a misunderstanding or oversight concerning the potential value of converting UF6 to uranium metal, the critical facts would appear to be these:

Iran’s Inventory of 20% U-235

After commencing with the enrichment of uranium to 20% U-235 in early 2010, Iran accumulated about 150 kilograms of EUP at this enrichment by the end of 2011, and it crossed the 200 kg threshold sometime in the middle of 2012.  The latest report from the IAEA in February says Iran had produced 280 kg of UF6 enriched to 20% U-235, of which 167  kg was still in the form of UF6. Virtually all of the rest has been introduced into the reconversion plant to produce U3O8 for fuel fabrication. When the IAEA accounted for Iran’s declared activities in February, the plant had produced U3O8 containing 50 kg of uranium, leaving about 60 kg of uranium in the process inventory. According to the IAEA data, the current rate of production of feedstock at this enrichment level in its centrifuges is about 15 kg per month. Based on Iran’s ongoing installation of centrifuges, in theory Iran could produce as much as three times that amount, as spelled out in this ISIS report.

Iran’s Requirements for the TRR

On the basis of the performance history of most material test reactors, my notes distill that at a rating of 5 MW, if the reactor were to operate for half a calendar year, the TRR would use just under 13 kg of fuel per year enriched to 19.75% U-235., assuming an average discharge burnup of the fuel of 45%. That kind of duty cycle length and fuel burnup is de rigueur for material test reactors like the TRR. The exact amount of fuel needed for a year would depend on the exact operating schedule of the reactor, fabrication losses, and the real power level (not the nominal rated level) of the reactor. If we assume fabrication losses of about 15%, Iran might need 15 kg/year to make enough fuel to operate TRR like most MTRs are operated.

This morning I found a previous post by Geoff Forden back in 2009, which suggests that my generic MTR data track well with an unreferenced IAEA report showing that average burnup of the TRR fuel has been 42%, and that the reactor has been operated on-off on a weekly basis.

The record would also suggest that the TRR in the past was operated like other MTRs worldwide. But Iran since 2009 has claimed that it wants to operate the TRR to make medical isotopes. If we assume that, then Iran would want to operate the TRR on a near-continuous basis. Operating at 80% of the time, the fuel fabrication requirement would be about 24 kg/year enriched to 20% U-235 if all the other variables were the same.

What to Conclude from the Numbers

The current inventory of 280 kg of 20% EUP which Iran has accumulated since it began enriching at this level just three years ago is enough to meet Iran’s requirements for more than twenty years if the reactor were to continue to operate as in the past, enough for a decade if Iran were to be successful in operating the 1960s-vintage machine flat out to produce isotopes round-the-clock. Beyond this, if Iran were to continue to produce 20% enriched EUP at current rates, it will produce annually seven times the amount of EUP Iran would need for TRR if it were to be operated at a high duty cycle for isotope production. If Iran increases output of 20% enriched uranium based on its deployed capabilities, it might make enough TRR fuel feedstock in a single year to operate the reactor for two to four decades.

So a gambit to build down Iran’s higher-enriched uranium inventory might fit into the picture as a CBM for the diplomats. But at Iran’s current rate of production of 20% enriched EUP, it is already piling up an inventory of higher-enriched feedstock which in relative terms would resemble the kind of surpluses which Russia has accumulated at its civilian reprocessing plant at Ozersk because Russian reactors can’t burn the plutonium fast enough.

The Butt/Jenkins piece proposes that the P5+1 help Iran process the UF6 into metal fuel instead of U3O8. They argue that the metal form would be “safer” and “more proliferation resistant” than UF6.  It would be more chemically stable and hence safer. But uranium metal can be fairly quickly converted back to UF6.  There might be a virtue in converting the UF6 to metal that the authors didn’t mention: Metallic uranium would be an intermediate stage in the production of uranium silicide that is used in fuel worldwide for MTRs like the TRR which since the 1980s were converted from HEU to LEU fuel.

Right now Iran has neither the technology nor the expertise to produce fuels on the basis of U3Si2 in powder form. There are a number of fabricators that do have this knowhow–in Argentina, Chile, China, France, Indonesia, and South Korea–and perhaps one of these, as part of a P5+1 deal with Iran, could step in and provide assistance.  On the basis of experienced accumulated by the U.S. DOE RERTR program worldwide, it would not likely be difficult for Iran to replace U3O8 with U3O2 fuel in the core of the TRR.

But if the powers negotiating with Iran were to contemplate a new TRR fuel deal with Iran and it failed to materialize, the most likely showstopper might not be whether Iran could be provided access to fuel production technology but the fact that Iran already has lots of feedstock to make the fuel on the basis of U3O8, the IAEA’s inventory data which suggest that Iran made enough fuel feedstock to operate the TRR for perhaps 3-4 years, and the expectation that Iranian scientists and technicians will on their own solve their fuel re-conversion and fabrication problems.

Back in 2009, even before Iran began enriching uranium to 20% U-235, Tehran warned that it would do that to produce medical isotopes in the TRR unless the P5+1 powers accomodated Iran and struck a deal. That didn’t happen, and now, four years later, Iran still has its TRR, and it has enough enriched uranium fuel to operate the reactor for many years. The P5+1 could repeat its offer to fabricate TRR fuel (in this case, help Iran fabricate it, as Butt and Jenkins plead), but given the fact that Iran has carried out its 2009 vows and is now making the fuel, the powers have little to offer here that would interest Iran. Iran will probably figure out how to get the temperatures and pressures right to reconvert the UF6 to U3O8 at the FPFP re-conversion plant at Esfahan, just as it figured out over the last several years how to operate the UCF plant in the same location.

A lot more than this will have to be put on the table by both sides before diplomacy shows real results.

The point of departure is this item by Bill Gertz which appeared on Friday.

My initial reaction to it in print was exactly the same as my reaction to it on the phone a week ago when I heard about it in the same breath as developments at this month’s meeting of the NSG’s Consultative Group in Vienna–I wasn’t certain that there was anything new here.

After all, back in early 2010 CNNC’s most important engineering subsidiary had announced here in fine print that it was going ahead with more power reactor sales to Pakistan and, specifically, for its Chashma site. These would become Chashma-3 and -4 projects a year later. A few countries, including the U.S., during NSG discussions in both 2010 and 2011 queried China about these exports. During the 2010 meetings China had little to say except to urge NSG PGs not to worry because all its trade conformed to NSG guidelines. Into 2011 China let on that it would, as many suspected, argue that these projects were grandfathered by a previous agreement with Pakistan.

While in Pakistan in 2011, I learned that construction work on C-3 and C-4 had in fact started, with the preparation of the foundations underway. No one in Pakistan said anything to me about planned construction of a fifth reactor at Chashma however they did report that Pakistan dearly wanted China to keep building still more reactors in Pakistan.

Beginning 18 months before Gertz wrote last week that he obtained from the State Department news that China and Pakistan had made a new reactor deal, Pakistan media were already engaged in wishful thinking about Pakistan importing what China had unwrapped in 2011 as a new 1,000 PWR design based on exclusively Chinese IPR. The IPR issue provoked me to do some thinking the last couple of days about what might be behind this apparently new transaction, assuming that Gertz’ information is correct.

Has China made a contractual commitment to build Chashma-5? If China were to go through with this transaction, the plant would be the fifth unit China builds at Chashma, and the third after China joined the NSG in 2004 on the basis of information China provided NSG PGs that the existing coopertion agreement between China and Pakistan did not expressly commit China to supply more reactors to Pakistan after C-1/2.

Note that this 1000-MW reactor would be built at a site that has two reactors already set up, as well as C-3/4 under construction, plus lot of other nuclear infrastructure. Images published in 2010 led to speculation that new construction activity at Chashma pointed to erection of new administrative buildings as well as a possible plutonium separation plant.

The point is that this site is hardly a pre-2007 Al-Kibar–there’s lots of new aerial images turning up all the time. So, why, pray tell, would China go to the bother of trying to keep an agreement top secret, as Gertz says, to dig more gaping holes in the ground for a 1,000-MW nuclear power plant?

Maybe the deal with Pakistan isn’t final, in which case discretion merely implies that there is more for the two sides to negotiate (and so there really isn’t anything new here). If there is an MOU or something more, China might want it kept secret for a limited period of time if it considered Chashma-5 as a bargaining chip it could use to obtain certain important benefits.

Since the NSG back in 2010 was confronted by the uncomfortable possibility that China would dish the group about further exports to Pakistan–just two years after Beijing relented to the exception to NSG guidelines proposed by the U.S.  for India –some people have considered that a possible way out for the NSG and China would be for both to come to an understanding that China would terminate its nuclear power plant commerce in Pakistan with the completion of C-3/4.

That would permit the NSG to bless the exports of C-3/4 and then in effect close the book and prevent what, if left unresolved, would be seen (especially by NPT parties during the 2015 Revcon) as a challenge to the NSG’s credibility.

Now, China might put Chashma-5 on the table, in effect telling the NSG, “Okay, if the PGs want to get Pakistan and China to fix this nuclear trade regime thing, we could constructively participate in that effort on the basis that we build the 1,000-MW reactor in Pakistan.”

What would China get in return for a deal? Maybe two things:

• a wink and a nod from the U.S. concerning the issue of China’s nuclear trade regime compliance, at a time when the U.S. and China are about to renegotiate a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement to replace a pact which expires  in 2015–and which will be reviewed by the U.S. Congress before it can enter into force.
• support from foreign governments for a deal between Chinese industry and foreign companies, chiefly in France and the U.S., concerning IPR for the 1,000-MW PWR which China has claimed is exclusively Chinese.

The U.S. connection appears straightforward but the IPR issue would be a stretch for the NSG. I understand that  Sino-Pak nuclear commerce is politically and strategically driven. But to some in senior management at CNNC and its tributaries, the global export market for CNNC’s 1,000-MW nuclear power plant has got to be a lot more important than the uncertain and unprofitable sale of one unit to Pakistan. In 2011, official people in Pakistan told me that when Beijing and Islamabad struck a deal for Chashma-3/4, Pakistan had to settle on the 300-MW PWR which had been chosen for C-1/2. For C-3/4, Pakistan wanted a two-loop, 650-MW version of that reactor but was told by Beijing that China could not export it because that model contains some non-Chinese IPR. Likewise, Pakistan officials said that the IPR for China’s three-loop 1,000-MW PWR was not entirely indiginous, preventing its export to Pakistan.

Since at least late 2011, China officially asserts that all the IPR for the 1,000-MW PWR is Chinese, permitting China to export this design without approval from the French, U.S., and other foreign vendor firms (in particular Areva predecessor Framatome, EDF, and Westinghouse) which since the 1980s have cooperated with Chinese industry and design institutes to create more modern PWR technology than that represented by Qinshan-1 in China.

But maybe IPR issues don’t figure for China on Chashma-5, and instead China is just, well, counting on the argument that might-makes-right. If China can graze at will in the vineyards of St-Estephe and Pauillac, and is about to gobble up Gevrey-Chambertin and Meurseult next, surely it can force its IPR claims onto Areva–so the argument goes in Paris.

But not so fast. So far, reports in Chinese media asserting that all IPR for the 1,000-MW design is Chinese have not been contested in public by China’s foreign industry counterparts and their governments. That doesn’t have to mean that they concede that point. “Do you want to know if we share the Chinese view that all that IPR is theirs?” one Western diplomat in Beijing asked me about 6 months ago. I told him that in fact I did want to know the answer to that question. “Then wait until you see how we react if and when China signs a contract” to sell the reactor to a foreign client.

In Seoul a few weeks ago, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies asked me, Sharon Squassoni from CSIS, and Scott Snyder from the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss with Korean experts at the Asan Nuclear Forum 2013 what will likely transpire. Our respective views may be different in nuance, but regarding the fate of the negotiation they seemed consistent. In retrospect, I think the panel covered the essentials, but we may have been a little spooked by the intense reaction at Asan to the DPRK’s third nuclear explosive test, which happened just a few days before.

I was in the ROK when North Korea in 2009 tested the second time, and when I arrived back in the country on February 17 I didn’t think that South Korea’s reaction to the third test would be any different. Within 48 hours after arriving in Seoul, it was clear that I was wrong about that. Martin Fackler and Choe Sang-hun from the New York Times were on hand in Seoul with us and their piece this morning summarized the overall tenor.

Even before we showed up at the conference in Seoul, participants were informed by e-mail that the agenda of the Asan meeting would be changed to reflect intense concern about the test. At the top of the meeting in the morning of March 19, Chung Moon Joon, a ROK parliamentarian, former presidential candidate, and a member of the Hyundai family, which funds Asan, endorsed the redeployment of U.S. theater nuclear weapons on ROK territory, and then offered this: “Some even say that the only way to solve the North Korean nuclear problem is for South Korea to follow the India-Pakistan example, or the case of Israel, a country that is most close to the U.S. politically, but acknowledged to have nuclear weapons. Having our own nuclear arsenal may be the only way to negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ with North Korea.” During the conference, Asan reported the results of fresh opinion research conducted in the shadow of the DPRK test suggesting that a majority of South Koreans favored the ROK having nuclear weapons.

These were my talking points for the discussion on the US-ROK negotiation:

• As time passes, it will become increasingly difficult for the U.S. to argue that the ROK should not carry out R&D on pyroprocessing. That’s because 1) South Korea can assert with confidence that its nuclear power program fully justifies searching for a long term technology-based solution for sustainable management of ever-larger volumes of spent fuel, 2) South Korea is in full compliance with the NPT, is implementing an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, and benefits from an annual “broader conclusion” from the IAEA Department of Safeguards that all nuclear activities in the ROK are declared and dedicated to peaceful uses, and 3) a cornerstone of U.S. policy against ROK reprocessing–the 1992 no-reprocessing/enrichment agreement between the ROK and the DPRK–has been abrogated by Pyongyang.

• The U.S. also has a credibility problem because in 2008 it concluded a nuclear cooperation agreement with India–a state with nuclear weapons outside the NPT–providing India programmatic approval to reprocess its U.S.-origin spent fuel under IAEA safeguards.

• So far, neither the U.S. nor the ROK is prepared to back down from firm, mutually incompatible positions concerning the ROK’s rights to “alter in form or content” irradiated nuclear material under a new agreement.

• DPRK enrichment, reprocessing, and weapons-making demonstrate to the ROK that the joint 1992 pledge with the DPRK is history. The U.S. continues to maintain that the 1992 agreement is still in force.

• Neither side would have a clear advantage in holding out for the existing agreement to expire. U.S. negotiators may assert that ROK entities do not own enough intellectual property to emancipate the ROK from U.S. consent rights, implying that without a new agreement under Washington’s terms, Korean industry in March 2014 must suspend construction of nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates covered by a $20-billion contract.
• The ROK might counter that the U.S. will want to conclude a new agreement on time to respect the UAE’s vital interest in completing its nuclear plant project without delay.

• The fresh DPRK test may underscore to the new ROK government the salience of its alliance with the U.S. If so, at the eleventh hour President Park may not go to the mat with the U.S. over nuclear consent rights.

• There are two distinct ROK spent nuclear fuel dilemmas. The first is the near-term threat that reactors must shut down because there is no more space in wet pools at reactor sites. The second is the absence of a long-term management plan for Korean spent fuel, a problem the ROK shares with many nuclear power-generating countries, including the U.S.

• The ROK has conflated these two issues by claiming that public acceptance of nuclear power in Korea depends on government and industry demonstrating that there is a technological solution for management of spent fuel. Strongly colored by experience in the U.S., many U.S experts say they believe that this position is a cover for Korea’s R&D sector’s interest. (“Pyroprocessing is the answer. What is the question?”)

• Since 1997, when ROK scientists began openly advocating pyroprocessing as the solution to build down the ROK’s spent fuel inventory, they have been walking back expectations about when this technology can be deployed. Pyroprocessing will not likely have any impact on the ROK’s spent fuel volume for perhaps two decades or more.

• Likewise driven by unique U.S. attitudes, many U.S. experts are insensitive to the official ROK view that a once-through fuel cycle is ultimately unsustainable. Korean R&D officials–like many of their counterparts in France, Japan, Russia, India, and China–favor a “closed” fuel cycle based on reprocessing/pyroprocessing and fast reactors.

• Debate over whether the ROK should have the freedom to pyroprocess is ultimately not about whether a pyroprocessing system is safeguardable or whether the ROK will divert nuclear material for a clandestine nuclear program. It is about whether the U.S. has confidence that the ROK will stay in the NPT and not obtain a capability to produce nuclear weapons in a short period of time.

• Given time constraints, without resolution of the above differences the most likely outcome may be an agreement to extend the terms of the existing bilateral agreement for a limited period to afford negotiators more time to come up with a long-term agreement. In the meantime, bilateral cooperation on pyroprocessing-related R&D in the U.S. can go forward under a ten-year joint fuel cycle study that the U.S. and the ROK agreed to in 2011.

I have since heard the view that because the DPRK has warned that it plans to conduct further nuclear weapons tests, the ROK and the U.S. should not extend the current agreement for a limited period but instead conclude a new long-term agreement as soon as possible (implying that either the U.S. or ROK position on programmatic approval must prevail). Continued DPRK testing–presumably of uranium-fueled explosive devices–will make it more difficult for the ROK and the U.S. to reach an agreement, since pressure from conservative ROK politicians to leave the NPT or develop a nuclear weapons capability will only increase.

Unlike the petroleum we import, most of the uranium which fuels the world’s 400-plus nuclear power reactors comes from politically stable regions. If a lot more reactors are built, and the demand for uranium significantly increases, more of it might come from less-secure sources. In anticipation of a nuclear renaissance, investors tempted by speculative price increases during the last decade have been searching for uranium in places off the beaten track, including in northern Mali where France is now at war with Al Qaeda insurgents.

What were investors thinking about risk when they stepped into remote parts of northern and eastern Mali beginning a few years ago? Maybe something like what you’ll find in the introductory pages of the current (2009) edition of the Lonely Planet guide to West Africa, which says about this country: “The Tuareg rebellion that began in 2006 seems to have almost run its course… on many fronts Mali is a model of West African democracy, one in which the overall health of the system has proven more enduring than the ambitions of individual leaders.”  To be fair, the fine print deep inside the guidebook urges caution on travel in remote areas, and I can easily imagine a careful editor three years ago having inserted that qualifier almost in the sentence I cited above. But the windfall of arms from Libya, unfulfilled and intensifying Tuareg grievances, and the arrival of Al Qaeda were clearly not anticipated.

Mali’s Uranium Resources

In  2007, Oklo Resources Ltd , a company listed on the Australia Stock Exchange, started up uranium exploration in Kidal, located in the desert northeast of the country near the Algerian border. The Mali government told the IAEA in 2009 that the Kidal project covers an area about 20,000 square kilometers. How far did it get before Islamists came knocking in northern Mali? Not very far. According to the “Red Book” on global uranium production and resources, the Kidal site was idle beginning in the last quarter of 2011 because of “political unrest” although the company planned to begin a drilling program in May 2012.

An investor listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Rockgate Capital, is now in charge of a property that the French firm Areva (actually its predecessor Cogema) dabbled with many years ago, called Falea. The Red Book says that in 2012 Rockgate planned to continue exploring for silver, copper, and uranium at that site, which may contain identified and inferred uranium resources totaling about 10,000 tons. The Red Book suggests that political unrest may also have been a factor investors had to consider at this site, although it is located considerably to the south and west of France’s theater of operations against insurgents. Efforts to drill at the site have for several years encountered political opposition supported by Greens in the European Parliament.

There is no uranium production in Mali today. If you had plunked down hard cash in Mali uranium properties five years ago, you might currently regret that decision, but Mali’s uranium resource base would hardly justify the conspiracy theory floated in some quarters of cyberspace this month that France is going to war in Mali to protect Areva’s access to uranium there.

Problems in Niger

The political economy of natural resource extraction, including uranium, might well indeed factor into French decision-making on how to respond to insurgency in West Africa at large. The takeover last week of a natural gas plant in Algeria spelled out that Al Qaeda’s reach in the region goes beyond Mali and that Islamists will target natural-resource investments.

With national borders in the Sahara and Sahel existing largely on maps alone, a main focus of French concern has got to be Niger, the centerpiece of uranium production in northern Africa. As in Mali, Tuaregs in Niger have pressed the government for a greater share of the proceeds from mineral extraction, including from uranium production.

In 2011 Niger produced 4,400 tons of uranium, making Niger the fourth-biggest producer in the world. Two mines there in which Areva is the main shareholder provide about a third of the uranium consumed by France’s nuclear power stations and a third of Areva’s total annual uranium output.

Reuters reported last year that Niger, aiming to push uranium output to over 5,000 tons/year, pressed Areva to open a new mine at Imouraren, a site where seven Areva employees were kidnapped by rebels in 2010.  The site of the hostage-taking was a uranium-producing location in the desert about 900 kilometers north east of the capital, Niamey. France and Niger fell out over the issue of lax security that permitted insurgents easy access their victims, as security was provided on the site by companies staffed by unarmed ex-Tuareg rebels; the rebels executed one French hostage and Al Qaeda claimed responsibility. Shortly after the kidnappings, the French military stepped up its aerial presence in Niger.

In 2007–at the same time foreign investors were gearing up to prospect for uranium in Mali–the Niger government likewise jumped on the bandwagon prompted by uranium market speculation, and ended its exclusive partnership with French industry. Le Monde reported that, at the same time, Niger demanded more compensation from France related to uranium-mining operations; sold through late 2012 scores of prospecting rights to non-French investors; and supported the demands of Tuaregs to share the wealth from Areva’s uranium production. According to more media reports, in the wake of the award of a uranium concession to Chinese industry, tension arose between Tuaregs and Chinese investors, leading to kidnapping of Chinese personnel.

Recent local accounts suggest that Tuaregs in Mali may have linked with Al Qaeda to tap money flowing into Mali, Niger, and Mauritania provided by Saudi-funded Wahabis, and that the rise in insurgency backed by Al Qaeda might be explained by Tuaregs’ once again demanding money from the government and other potential sources. In Niger, according to this study, Touaregs made a deal with the Niger government in 1995 to cease fighting in exchange for between 10% and 15% of the proceeds from uranium-mining operations. Two years later, a breakaway group resumed violence against the state. This was followed by a peace accord, and that in turn by renewed conflict over water shortages, working conditions, and ecological degradation. Finally, in 2007, a new Tuareg separation movement was formed, which demanded greater compensation from uranium revenues and better environmental protection.

Threat Mitigation

The peaceful resolution of Tuareg grievances would go far to mitigate uranium-mining security threats in the region in the long term. Experience suggests that’s easier said than done. But what would happen if a state were to implode and its uranium-mining assets were taken over by terrorists?  Were a country to lose control of remote assets, uranium might be misappropriated. For a clandestine nuclear-weapons program, a little uranium would go a long way. So far, not much attention has been given to this dilemma among established uranium producers, industry executives say, because until now the threat of such an event has been considered very improbable, and uranium ore is at the bottom of the nuclear fuel cycle.

In 2004, the IAEA was alerted that illegal uranium mining may have been taken place in the Republic of the Congo, following interest in uranium sales from North Korea and India. This was investigated by the IAEA. No transgressions were identified or reported in the Congo’s country files by IAEA personnel.  Without an Additional Protocol in place, comprehensive safeguards agreements in countries mining uranium would not per se afford the IAEA access to mines. There are Additional Protocols in force in Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

This morning a small number of international news outlets all ran that little item up the flagpole. I admit I was intrigued by the lead we were all spoon-fed yesterday (“Missing Uranium in Syria May be Headed to Iran”) since in fact the war between Assad’s forces and rebel troops around Damascus the last few weeks has been hotting up. If there is a cache of uranium in the greater Damascus area, as our interlocutors insist, it very well could be in the crossfire of antagonists and hence right now making Israel and some Western governments nervous, and possibly may have been part of some recent chit-chatting on Syria at the IAEA.

The territory surrounding the Syrian capital is not firmly under the control of either side, and the idea that uranium might be bestowed on Iran by either party is hardly far-fetched, since there is other evidence suggesting that both Assad and the rebels are courting Iran’s favor. Whoever has his mitts on any uranium in the country might be willing to spirit it to Iran in return for good will, money, or hardware. (If after reading this you still don’t understand why it’s important for the IAEA to establish the completeness and correctness of countries’ nuclear declarations, then you’ll probably never get it.)

But in the end, I gave this item a belated shrug yesterday in favor of more pressing matters on my plate because, frankly, there wasn’t any real new information here about the alleged nuclear material or its whereabouts.

No doubt, as did the reporters who had been dialed up about this, yesterday I quickly homed in on the Marj as-Sultan site as the likely location for the uranium in Syria, as I assume we had all been told by informants that the material was someplace on the outskirts of Damascus. Given that we’ve known for awhile about three locations in Syria which the IAEA has reason to believe may be related to the bombed installation at Al-Kibar, deemed last year by Director General Yukiya Amano as most likely a destroyed nuclear reactor, looking at Marj as-Sultan first was a no-brainer because it is the only one of the three sites in a Damascus suburb.

But not to anticipate. Where near Damascus is the uranium, I had asked yesterday. My interlocutors didn’t want to go there. That little omission might possibly be significant, because in October last year, this site asserted that Syrian rebels had determined that uranium was found to be at a different location north of Damascus (Marj as-Sultan is east) associated with chemical weapons materials which were being stored there. (Last night I queried that website for the link to five YouTube videos it asserted that rebels had made and which had originally broadcast this allegation; the site’s managers today told me they could not locate the videos, and instead attached this link to a Bill Gertz article which claims to know what is in the video clips, and asserts even further that the chemical site hosts “enriched uranium.”)

If Syria intends to ship to Iran uranium (in this case natural uranium metal and at least some of it in the form of fuel assemblies each containing eight pins), then Syria most certainly would have to tell the IAEA. If Iran obtains it, Iran would have to do the same. Article III.2 of the NPT and Article 34 of the model NPT safeguards agreement require that this material can’t change hands between Syria and Iran unless safeguards are attached. If Syria were to export it, it would have to notify to the IAEA the identity, quantity, composition, and material balance area where the material comes from; the country where it is exported to; dates and locations for shipping; scheduled dates for dispatch and arrival, and; the point of transfer and date of transfer.

All these requirements would likely be moot, of course, if any uranium metal fuel in Syria subject to transport were not to have been declared to the IAEA. And you can bet that 50 MT of uranium metal would not have been declared, since Syria continues to deny that it was running a clandestine nuclear program when Israeli aircraft took off for Al-Kibar.

The FT account this morning appeared to  insinuate that the “gradual removal of a large orchard for no apparent reason” near Marj as-Sultan constituted suspicious behavior. Tree-cutting as a signature for nefarious nuclear activity?  They may speculate. But in fact we don’t know so far whether anyone looking for this uranium in Syria has ever actually seen any.

At the time the civil war broke out, the IAEA had not obtained any specific information identifying beyond any doubt where the fuel for Al-Kibar was currently located. Information pointing to nuclear fuel-related activities at Marj as-Sultan indicated there was equipment on site that might have been used to process or fabricate nuclear fuel. But had anyone clearly identified nuclear fuel rods or assemblies at Marj as-Sultan before the war broke out? Not to my knowledge.

Today the situation may be different. Assad is losing his grip, and his military can no longer keep adversaries from coming and going, including in and out of strategic facilities. If there is in fact any hidden uranium in Syria, the number of people who know where it is might be growing.

Since then, other differences between Russia and the West over how to deal with Iran have emerged. Beginning last November, Russia has expressed prickly views on this and related issues at the IAEA, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has also spelled out that he expects his diplomats to more firmly represent Russia’s national interests–including specifically on Iran’s nuclear program. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov last month publicly endorsed direct U.S.-Iran bilateral discussions, but it also appears that if the U.S. proposes to Iran and the P5+1 anything to resolve the crisis that doesn’t take into consideration Russia’s interests and concerns, it isn’t going to fly.

So while waiting for the United States and the other powers to step up to the plate in coming weeks, I’ve been mulling how a comprehensive package deal with Iran might include a Russian buy-in. There’s no silver bullet, but my thoughts keep returning to the potential for nuclear cooperation between Iran and Russia.

Were a comprehensive P5+1 Iran deal to include a Russo-Iranian agreement on nuclear cooperation, that element might accomplish three things:

• afford Moscow a powerful incentive to unite with Western powers in persuading Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA
• open a sustainable path for Iran toward commercial nuclear power development, and
• provide a clear peaceful-use rationale for Iran’s uranium enrichment program, including for Iran’s steadily growing inventory of enriched uranium product (EUP)

Russia’s nuclear export agenda

Putin’s ongoing foreign policy rethink is aimed in part at enhancing Russia’s leverage as a global supplier of energy fuels and technologies, including for nuclear power. His government is pressing vendor Rosatom to expand nuclear power plant exports, and a bilateral agreement to provide Iran several modern VVER power reactors would fit that agenda. Currently, Russia is aiming at construction in Belarus, China, India, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam, but not all these prospects will be commercially viable. More recently, Rosatom has made known it has plans to complete a generic design assessment in five years to allow the U.K. to certify its VVER PWR design for construction there, and it also wants to certify the design in the U.S.

Were Iran to agree to and implement a deal meant to establish that Iran’s nuclear program is wholly dedicated to peaceful use, UNSC sanctions on Iran could be lifted, Iran could use receipts from oil exports to finance its diversification investments into nuclear power, and Russia’s commercial and political risk in exporting nuclear reactors to Iran would thereby be reduced. Iran–not the powers–would pay Russian industry for reactors and other infrastructure.

It can be assumed that any power reactors Russia would export to Iran would be modern turnkey VVERs. The hybrid German-Russian  Bushehr-1 unit–the product of commercial turmoil unleashed by Iran’s Islamic revolution–would not be replicated. New Russian VVER projects in Iran–like those currently underway in China–would be subject to standard commercial construction schedules including milestones. What might this be worth to Russia? If an agreement were made, say, for construction of four reactors, the total price tag might be around $20 billion.

During and after the commissioning of Bushehr-1, Russia has worked with Iran, including at the plant site, to assure that the reactor is operated safely.  This is in Russia’s own interest, as its nuclear exporting plans would be severely damaged were a severe accident to take place at Bushehr. But Iran still is the only nuclear power generating country in the world which is not a party to the international Convention on Nuclear Safety. Under a new nuclear agreement with Russia, Iran could bolster international confidence that its nuclear deployment will be safe and transparent by ratifying the convention and participating in its activities, including providing information to other convention parties about the status of its nuclear safety efforts.

Iran’s nuclear power aspirations

Iran has had plans to build a fleet of power reactors since the mid-1970s but until now, Iran’s success is limited to completion of Bushehr-1–delayed three decades by revolution, war, foreign sanctions, engineering challenges, and domestic political turmoil. The current regime in Iran says it remains committed to building more power reactors. A nuclear agreement with Russia as part of a package deal with the P5+1 could assist Iran in doing this. While UNSC resolutions concerning Iran’s nuclear program do not expressly prevent Iran from importing power reactors, it is unlikely that any power reactor exporting country–including Russia–would commit itself to building more reactors in Iran so long as the IAEA has not established that Iran’s nuclear program is wholly accounted for and is exclusively peaceful.

Iran is the first country in the Middle East to operate a nuclear power plant. But it knows that, without partnerships with foreign industry, in the future it will be overtaken by the Arab states in the Gulf, first by the UAE, which is building a group of modern Korean reactors, and then perhaps by Saudi Arabia, which aims to deploy a fleet of nuclear units during the next two decades. If Iran wants to keep pace with its neighbors, it will need foreign partners it currently doesn’t have.

Iran’s enriched uranium product

Russia and Iran might mutually benefit from a bilateral nuclear power plant supply deal, but that arrangement would not address the proliferation concerns in Iran which are at the core of the Iranian nuclear crisis. If a Russo-Iran nuclear agreement were however to include the transfer of PWR fuel fabrication technology and equipment to Iran, that might help de-escalate those concerns.

Iran continues to add gas centrifuge uranium enrichment capacity and may have enough soon to produce EUP for one reload of PWR fuel per year for Bushehr-1. Currently, Iran has been storing most of its EUP in the form of UF6, which could be quickly fed into centrifuges for further enrichment. A small amount of EUP has been converted to UO2 and U3O8. Iran has begun operation of a pilot-scale installation for production of modest amounts of research reactor fuel using U3O8 feedstock but Iran has not declared to the IAEA any installation in Iran for the production of enriched UO2 fuel for PWRs. Under agreement with Russia, Bushehr-1 operates using Russian-supplied EUP.

Were Russia to agree to provide additional power reactors to Iran, it might also agree to transfer technology and equipment to permit Iran to fabricate the fuel, using EUP enriched in Iran. In advance of the operation of such a fuel fabrication plant, Iran could agree to convert its enriched UF6 inventory to UO2. Iran could also fabricate UO2 pellets for VVER fuel assemblies in advance of making assemblies and loading and irradiating the fuel in a power reactor, as the UO2 would be chemically stable after pelletization. Iran and the P5+1 might agree that this unirradiated fuel would not be reconverted and re-enriched to above 5% U-235.

Since 2006, Western countries have been focused on trying to de-escalate the crisis in part by getting Iran to move its enriched uranium out of the country. If Russia instead provided Iran fuel fabrication know-how, that would enhance and in fact essentially complete Iran’s capabilities in the front end of the commercial nuclear fuel cycle, and permit Iran to process its EUP into reactor fuel inside the country. Iran having VVER fuel fabrication capability in tandem with agreements to build more VVER power reactors would provide a clearly peaceful nuclear objective for Iran’s uranium enrichment program, providing the basis for international confidence in Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Based on the record of efforts by U.S. industry to fabricate VVER fuel, and on an ongoing bilateral agreement under which Russia is transfering technology and equipment for VVER fuel fabrication to China, it might require as much as a decade for Iran to master precision fuel fabrication for Russian-supplied power reactors, an initial investment of between $75 million and $150 million for pilot-scale technology development and production, and ultimately perhaps about $250 to $300 million for establishment of an industrial-scale capability. Construction of a VVER fuel fabrication line in China was justified on the basis that China would build a handful of VVER units at its Tianwan site. China is now fabricating a small amount of VVER fuel for the first of these reactors. As in the case of Sino-Russian fuel fabrication cooperation, it could be assumed that for Iran to acquire the craftsmanship needed to manufacture UO2 fuel to extremely high specifications–implying the production of virtually leak-free welded fuel pins–guidance from Russian experts, first in Russia, and then in Iran, would be necessary.

Potential issues

I’ve looked at the potential for Russo-Iranian nuclear cooperation as a possible buy-in for Moscow to a broader deal which would provide Iran benefits in exchange for cooperation. That doesn’t imply that such an arrangement would be–as it was in the fateful Agreed Framework deal between the U.S. and North Korea–the singular or most important component of an umbrella agreement between the P5+1 and Iran.

Renewed Russo-Iranian nuclear cooperation could well be bedeviled by potential showstoppers, and here are a few of these:

• Political Will: Implementing an agreement to build a group of power reactors and fuel processing equipment in Iran would require heavy lifting by Russia. Moscow would have to be comfortable with the concomitant political risk. Were Iran not to agree to limit the scope of its enrichment program to production of EUP for power reactor fuel, Western powers would not agree to a deal which would endorse uranium enrichment by Iran.
• Russian government-industry conflict: Rosatom has on some export projects favored by the Kremlin expressed objections about their commercial feasibility. It is possible that the prospect of deeper nuclear cooperation with Iran would likewise divide industry and the government over how to proceed. Iran’s track record of cooperation with foreign industrial partners, for example in the fields of natural gas liquifaction and petroleum refining, to say nothing of Germany’s experience with Bushehr, may not inspire sufficient confidence.
• Cost: A bilateral nuclear export deal worth its salt would have to spell out who pays for what. Russia might be willing to offer Iran a discount to honor Iran’s willingness to cooperate, but ultimately, if Iran doesn’t want nuclear power badly enough to pay for it, such an agreement will fail.
• The China factor: Don’t forget that in 1997, China forfeited its ambitions to export power reactors and other nuclear installations to Iran in exchange for nuclear cooperation with the U.S. China’s revved-up nuclear industry is now looking aggressively for export markets. How would China respond to a plan that would lock in Russia as a supplier of nuclear power plants to Iran?
• Iran’s appraisal of Moscow: Hossein Mousavian’s personal account of the Iran nuclear crisis waxes in detail about what he describes as the failure of Iran’s leaders at times to have played the “Russian card” to advance Tehran’s interests vis-a-vis the West. Instead, he says, Russia showed its true colors by agreeing to all UNSC resolutions sanctioning Iran. If Tehran trusts Moscow little or no more than it trusts the West, its hard to see how Russia can contribute more than other UNSC powers to a comprehensive crisis solution.

• Pollard was spying on Pakistan, Arab states, and the USSR–not the U.S.
• There’s a 21-page personal profile of Pollard, testifying to behavior which would characterize him as a U.S. security risk
• Pollard and Israel were keenly interested in air defence systems in Libya, Tunesia, USSR, Egypt, elsewhere
• US officials were alarmed at the revelation that Israel had mounted an operation to penetrate U.S. intelligence
• At the same time, Pollard’s aid to Israel permitted Israel to neutralize U.S. intelligence-gathering on Israel