Iran is set to acquire its first civilian nuclear power plant following Russia’s announcement on Friday that atomic fuel will be loaded in the facility from August 21.
Sergei Novikov, the spokesman for the Russian atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, said that loading of fuel would be a key step for starting the reactor.
The entire process of feeding fuel rods in the reactor is expected to be completed in 2-3 weeks.
“This will be an irreversible step,” Mr. Novikov was quoted as saying. “At that moment, the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be certified as a nuclear energy installation,” he added. “That means the period of testing is over and the period of the physical start-up has begun, but this period takes about two and a half months.” The first fissile reaction is expected in October.
Iran’s atomic energy agency head, Ali Akbar Salehi, said that a formal inauguration of the facility would be held in late September or early October when the fuel is moved “to the heart of the reactor”. Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Mr. Salehi as saying that the reactor would be linked to the Iran’s electricity grid when it is powered to a 50 per cent level.
Analysts see Russia’s willingness to go ahead with Bushehr as a sign of Moscow’s assertion against isolating Iran through sanctions which do not have the approval of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
However, the reactor does not pose proliferation risks as its activities would be fully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Besides all the spent fuel generated by the plant would be shipped to Russia. Russia’s Interfax reported that fuel for the first reactor in Bushehr was delivered in January 2008.
Russia took over the plant in 1995, after the German power engineering firm Kraftwerk Union withdrew from the project, begun in the 1970s, following Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. Earlier in March, the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin had said that Russia planned to start the Bushehr reactor in the summer of 2010.
Comments:
"Loading the fuel would be a key step in starting the reactor."
You think?
LOL.
Beautiful picture.
Good luck to them.
Iran has rights to develop nuclear energy and carry out all research related to nuclear power similar to any other country like Israel, America and India. It will be a great mistake if Israel or America use her military might to destroy their research centers. It will be against the U.N. Charter too. Hope, every one will sit together and resolve their dispute amicably.
Even those at odds with each other can make a positive difference in this world! Nuclear power is a safe and proven technology that delivers on the level and then some of what coal and fossil fuel technologies can only dream of. This needs to become the norm everywhere possible, so that further advancements can be made!
It won't be long now before Iran is toast! This facility needs to be taken out as soon as possible...
What do you think the odds are the Israelis will destroy this reactor before it starts up?
Blow that facility up! Deadly people with deadly beliefs and deadly weapons will only wreak havoc for the rest of the world.
I hope Mr.Bagoti will remember how amicably Ahmadinejad speaks when he is trying to resolve disputes. If they get nuclear capability we are all in trouble.