The IAEA's latest quarterly report on the Iranian nuclear issue reported recently that the fortified underground enrichment plant in Fordow has received two new cascades of advanced centrifuges, 174 each. A total of 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment are planned to be located at this facility. A previous IAEA report, published in May, reported that 1,064 centrifuges had already been installed at Fordow, 696 of which were operating at full capacity by the time the document was published. This is what Russian news agencies report.
However, foreign news agencies, in particular Reuters, referring to the same IAEA report, cites a more heartbreaking quote: "The number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment in the Fordu complex located deep in the mountain has increased from 1,064 to 2,140 pieces."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant
Perhaps the IAEA experts themselves got confused in the numbers. In any case, they do not prevent politicians and the media from scaring the population with various numbers, supposedly showing Iran's desire to build an atomic bomb or missile warhead. And the calculations have already begun again on how many tons of uranium Iran has enriched and in how many months it will make bombs out of it. But everyone is keeping quiet about the fact that not enriched uranium is obtained at centrifuge enrichment plants. At the exit there is gaseous uranium hexafluoride. And you can't make a bomb out of gas.
The uranium-containing gas has to be transported to another facility. In Iran, production lines for the deconversion of uranium hexafluoride are located at the UCF plant in Isfahan. The deconversion of hexafluoride enriched to 5% is already being successfully carried out there. But the result is again not uranium, but uranium dioxide UO2. You can't make a bomb out of it either. But it is just from it that fuel pellets are made, from which rods for nuclear power plants are assembled. The production of fuel cells is also located in Isfahan at the FMP plant.
To obtain metallic uranium, uranium dioxide is exposed to gaseous hydrogen fluoride at temperatures from 430 to 600 degrees. The result is, of course, not uranium, but UF4 tetrafluoride. And already from it metal uranium is reduced with the help of calcium or magnesium. Whether Iran owns these technologies is unknown. Probably not.
However, it is the enrichment of uranium to 90% that is considered the key technology for obtaining nuclear weapons. Without this, all other technologies are irrelevant. But what matters is the productivity of gas centrifuges, technological losses of raw materials, the reliability of equipment and a number of other factors that Iran is silent about, the IAEA is silent, intelligence agencies of different countries are silent.
Therefore, it makes sense to take a closer look at the uranium enrichment process. Look at the history of the issue. Try to understand where the centrifuges came from in Iran, what they are. And why Iran has been able to establish centrifuge enrichment, while the United States, having spent billions of dollars, has not been able to achieve this. In the United States, uranium is enriched under government contracts at gaseous diffusion plants, which is many times more expensive.
UNDERSTANDED PRODUCTION
Natural uranium-238 contains only 0.7% of the radioactive isotope uranium-235, and the construction of an atomic bomb requires a content of uranium-235 of 90%. That is why fissile material technologies are the main stage in the creation of atomic weapons.
How can the lighter atoms of uranium-235 be separated from the mass of uranium-238? After all, the difference between them is only three "atomic units". There are four main separation (enrichment) methods: magnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, centrifugal and laser. The most rational and cheapest is the centrifugal one. It needs 50 times less electricity per unit of production than with the gaseous diffusion enrichment method.
Inside the centrifuge, a rotor rotates at an incredible speed - a glass into which gas enters. The centrifugal force pushes the heavier fraction containing uranium-238 to the walls. Lighter uranium-235 molecules gather closer to the axis. In addition, a counterflow is created inside the rotor in a special way. Due to this, the lighter molecules gather at the bottom, and the heavier ones at the top. Tubes are lowered into the rotor glass to different depths. One by one, the lighter fraction is pumped into the next centrifuge. According to another, depleted uranium hexafluoride is pumped out into the "tail" or "dump", that is, it is withdrawn from the process, pumped into special containers and sent to storage. In essence, it is waste, the radioactivity of which is lower than that of natural uranium.
One of the technological tricks is temperature control. Uranium hexafluoride becomes a gas at temperatures above 56.5 degrees. For efficient isotope separation, centrifuges are kept at a certain temperature. Which? Information is classified. As well as information about the gas pressure inside the centrifuges.
With a decrease in temperature, the hexafluoride liquefies, and then completely "dries up" - passes into a solid state. Therefore, barrels with "tails" are stored in open areas. After all, here they will never heat up to 56, 5 degrees. And even if you punch a hole in the barrel, the gas will not escape from it. In the worst case, a little yellow powder will spill out if someone has the strength to overturn a container with a volume of 2.5 cubic meters. m.
The height of the Russian centrifuge is about 1 meter. They are assembled in cascades of 20 pieces. The workshop is arranged in three tiers. There are 700,000 centrifuges in the workshop. The engineer on duty rides a bicycle along the tiers. Uranium hexafluoride in the separation process, which politicians and the media call enrichment, goes through the entire chain of hundreds of thousands of centrifuges. The centrifuge rotors rotate at a speed of 1500 revolutions per second. Yes, yes, one and a half thousand revolutions per second, not a minute. For comparison: the rotation speed of modern drills is 500, maximum 600 revolutions per second. At the same time, at Russian factories, rotors have been spinning continuously for 30 years. The record is over 32 years old. Fantastic reliability! MTBF - 0.1%. One failure per 1,000 centrifuges per year.
Due to the super-reliability, it was only in 2012 that we started replacing centrifuges of the fifth and sixth generations with devices of the ninth generation. Because they do not seek from goodness. But they have already worked for three decades, it is time to give way to more productive ones. Older centrifuges were spinning at subcritical speeds, that is, below the speed at which they can run wild. But the devices of the ninth generation operate at supercritical speeds - they pass a dangerous line and continue to work steadily. There is no information about the new centrifuges, it is forbidden to photograph them, so as not to decipher the dimensions. One can only assume that they have a traditional meter size and a rotation speed of the order of 2000 revolutions per second.
No bearing can withstand such speeds. Therefore, the rotor ends with a needle that rests on a corundum thrust bearing. And the upper part rotates in a constant magnetic field, without touching anything at all. And even with an earthquake, the rotor will not beat with destruction. Checked.
For your information: Russian low-enriched uranium for fuel cells of nuclear power plants is three times cheaper than that produced at foreign gaseous diffusion plants. It's about cost, not cost.
600 MEGAWATT PER KILOGRAM
When the United States embarked on the atomic bomb program during World War II, centrifugal isotope separation was chosen as the most promising method for producing highly enriched uranium. But the technological problems could not be overcome. And the Americans angrily declared centrifugation impossible. And the whole world thought so, until they realized that in the Soviet Union centrifuges are spinning, and even how they are spinning.
In the USA, when centrifuges were abandoned, it was decided to use the gas diffusion method to obtain uranium-235. It is based on the property of gas molecules with different specific gravity to diffuse (penetrate) differently through porous partitions (filters). Uranium hexafluoride is driven sequentially through a long cascade of diffusion stages. Smaller uranium-235 molecules seep through filters more easily, and their concentration in the total gas mass gradually increases. It is clear that to obtain 90% concentration, the number of steps must be in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
For the normal course of the process, it is required to heat the gas along the entire chain, maintaining a certain pressure level. And at each stage the pump must work. All this requires huge energy costs. How huge? In the first Soviet separation production, to obtain 1 kg of enriched uranium of the required concentration, it was required to spend 600,000 kWh of electricity. I draw your attention to the kilowatt.
Even now, in France, a gaseous diffusion plant is almost completely consuming the production of three units of a nearby nuclear power plant. The Americans, who supposedly have all their industry private, had to specially build a state power plant in order to feed the gaseous diffusion plant at a special rate. This power plant is still state-owned and still uses a special tariff.
In the Soviet Union in 1945 it was decided to build an enterprise for the production of highly enriched uranium. And at the same time to develop the development of a gaseous diffusion method for isotope separation. In parallel, start designing and manufacturing industrial plants. In addition to all this, it was necessary to create unparalleled automation systems, instrumentation of a new type, materials resistant to aggressive environments, bearings, lubricants, vacuum installations and much more. Comrade Stalin gave two years for everything.
The timing is unrealistic, and, naturally, in two years the result was close to zero. How can a plant be built if there is no technical documentation yet? How to develop technical documentation if it is not yet known what equipment will be there? How to design gaseous diffusion installations if the pressure and temperature of uranium hexafluoride are unknown? And they also did not know how this aggressive substance would behave when it came into contact with different metals.
All these questions were answered already during operation. In April 1948, in one of the atomic cities of the Urals, the first stage of a plant consisting of 256 dividing machines was put into operation. As the chain of machines grew, so did the problems. In particular, bearings were wedged in hundreds, grease was leaking. And the work was disorganized by special officers and their volunteers, who were actively looking for pests.
Aggressive uranium hexafluoride, interacting with the metal of the equipment, decomposed, uranium compounds settled on the inner surfaces of the units. For this reason, it was not possible to obtain the required 90% concentration of uranium-235. Significant losses in the multistage separation system did not allow obtaining a concentration higher than 40–55%. New devices were designed, which began work in 1949. But it was still not possible to reach the level of 90%, only by 75%. The first Soviet nuclear bomb was therefore plutonium, like that of the Americans.
Uranium-235 hexafluoride was sent to another enterprise, where it was brought to the required 90% by magnetic separation. In a magnetic field, lighter and heavier particles deflect differently. Due to this, separation occurs. The process is slow and expensive. Only in 1951 was the first Soviet bomb with a composite plutonium-uranium charge tested.
In the meantime, a new plant with more advanced equipment was under construction. Corrosion losses were reduced to such an extent that from November 1953, the plant began to produce 90% of the product in a continuous mode. At the same time, the industrial technology of processing uranium hexafluoride into uranium nitrous oxide was mastered. Uranium metal was then isolated from it.
The Verkhne-Tagilskaya GRES with a capacity of 600 MW was specially built to power the plant. In total, the plant consumed 3% of all electricity produced in 1958 in the Soviet Union.
In 1966, the Soviet gaseous diffusion plants began to be dismantled, and in 1971 they were finally liquidated. Centrifuges replaced filters.
TO THE HISTORY OF THE ISSUE
In the Soviet Union, centrifuges were built in the 1930s. But here, as well as in the USA, they were recognized as unpromising. The corresponding studies were closed. But here's one of the paradoxes of Stalin's Russia. In the fertile Sukhumi, hundreds of captured German engineers worked on various problems, including developing a centrifuge. This direction was headed by one of the leaders of the Siemens company, Dr. Max Steenbeck, the group included a Luftwaffe mechanic and a graduate of the University of Vienna Gernot Zippe.
Students in Isfahan, led by a cleric, pray to support Iran's nuclear program
But the work has come to a standstill. A way out of the impasse was found by the Soviet engineer Viktor Sergeev, a 31-year-old designer of the Kirov plant, who was engaged in centrifuges. Because at a party meeting he convinced those present that a centrifuge is promising. And by the decision of the party meeting, and not the Central Committee or Stalin himself, the corresponding developments were started in the design bureau of the plant. Sergeev collaborated with the captured Germans and shared his idea with them. Steenbeck later wrote: “An idea worthy of coming from us! But it never crossed my mind. And I came to the Russian designer - reliance on a needle and a magnetic field.
In 1958, the first industrial centrifuge production reached its design capacity. A few months later, it was decided to gradually switch to this method of separating uranium. Already the first generation of centrifuges consumed electricity 17 times less than gaseous diffusion machines.
But at the same time, a serious flaw was discovered - the fluidity of the metal at high speeds. The problem was solved by academician Joseph Fridlyander, under whose leadership a unique alloy V96ts was created, which is several times stronger than weapons steel. Composite materials are increasingly used in the production of centrifuges.
Max Steenbeck returned to the GDR and became vice president of the Academy of Sciences. And Gernot Zippe left for the West in 1956. There he was surprised to find that no one uses the centrifugal method. He patented the centrifuge and offered it to the Americans. But they have already decided that the idea is utopian. Only 15 years later, when it became known that in the USSR all uranium enrichment is carried out by centrifuges, Zippe's patent was implemented in Europe.
In 1971, the URENCO concern was created, belonging to three European states - Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. The concern's shares are divided equally between the countries.
The British government controls its third of the shares through Enrichment Holdings Limited. The Dutch government through Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland Limited. The German share belongs to Uranit UK Limited, whose shares, in turn, are equally divided between RWE and E. ON. URENCO is headquartered in the UK. Currently, the concern owns more than 12% of the market for commercial supplies of nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants.
However, while the operation method is identical, URENCO centrifuges have fundamental design differences. This is due to the fact that Herr Zippe was only familiar with the prototype made in Sukhumi. If Soviet centrifuges are only a meter high, then the European concern started with two meters, and the latest generation machines grew into columns of 10 meters. But this is not the limit.
The Americans, who have the largest in the world, have built machines that are 12 and 15 meters high. Only their plant closed down before opening, back in 1991. They are modestly silent about the reasons, but they are known - accidents and imperfect technology. However, a centrifuge plant owned by URENCO operates in the USA. Sells fuel to American nuclear power plants.
Whose centrifuges are better? Long cars are an order of magnitude more productive than small Russian ones. Long run at supercritical speeds. The 10-meter column at the bottom collects molecules containing uranium-235, and at the top - uranium-238. The hexafluoride from the bottom is pumped to the next centrifuge. Long centrifuges in the technological chain are required many times less. But when it comes to the cost of production, maintenance and repair, the numbers are reversed.
PAKISTAN TRACE
Russian uranium for fuel elements of nuclear power plants is cheaper than foreign uranium. Therefore, it occupies 40% of the world market. Half of American nuclear power plants run on Russian uranium. Export orders bring Russia more than $ 3 billion a year.
However, back to Iran. Judging by the photographs, two-meter URENCO centrifuges of the first generation are installed here at the processing plants. Where did Iran get them from? From Pakistan. Where did Pakistan come from? From URENKO, obviously.
The story is well known. A modest citizen of Pakistan, Abdul Qadir Khan, studied in Europe to be a metallurgical engineer, defended his doctorate and held a fairly high position in URENCO. In 1974, India tested a nuclear device, and in 1975 Dr. Khan returned to his homeland with a suitcase of secrets and became the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb.
According to some reports, Pakistan managed to buy 3 thousand centrifuges from the URENCO concern itself through shell companies. Then they began to buy components. One Dutch friend of Hahn knew all of URENCO's suppliers and contributed to the procurement. Valves, pumps, electric motors and other parts were purchased from which centrifuges were assembled. Something gradually began to produce themselves, purchasing the appropriate construction materials.
Since Pakistan is not wealthy enough to spend tens of billions of dollars on the nuclear weapons production cycle, equipment has been produced and sold. The DPRK became the first buyer. Then Iran's petrodollars began to flow. There is reason to believe that China was also involved, supplying Iran with uranium hexafluoride and technologies for its production and deconversion.
In 2004, Dr. Khan, after meeting with President Musharraf, appeared on television and publicly repented of selling nuclear technology abroad. Thus, he removed the blame for illegal exports to Iran and the DPRK from the Pakistani leadership. Since then, he has been in the comfortable conditions of house arrest. And Iran and the DPRK continue to build up their separation capacities.
What I would like to draw your attention to. The IAEA reports constantly refer to the number of working and non-working centrifuges in Iran. From which it can be assumed that cars made in Iran itself, even with the use of imported components, have a lot of technical problems. Perhaps most of them will never work.
At URENCO itself, the first generation of centrifuges also brought an unpleasant surprise to their creators. It was not possible to obtain a concentration of uranium-235 above 60%. It took several years to overcome the problem. We do not know what problems Dr. Khan faced in Pakistan. But, having begun research and production in 1975, Pakistan tested the first uranium bomb only in 1998. Iran is actually only at the beginning of this difficult path.
Uranium is considered highly enriched when the 235 isotope content exceeds 20%. Iran is constantly accused of producing highly enriched 20 percent uranium. But this is not true. Iran receives uranium hexafluoride with a uranium-235 content of 19.75%, so that even by accident, at least a fraction of a percent, it does not cross the forbidden line. Uranium of precisely this degree of enrichment is used for a research reactor built by the Americans during the Shah's regime. But 30 years have passed since they stopped supplying it with fuel.
Here, however, a problem also arose. A technological line has been built in Isfahan for the deconversion of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 19.75% into uranium oxide. But so far it has been tested only for the 5% fraction. Although mounted back in 2011. One can only imagine what difficulties will await Iranian engineers if it comes to 90% weapons-grade uranium.
In May 2012, an anonymous IAEA employee shared information with reporters that IAEA inspectors found traces of uranium enriched to 27% at an enrichment plant in Iran. However, there is not a word on this topic in the quarterly report of this international organization. It is also unknown what is meant by the word "footprints". It is possible that this was simply the injection of negative information within the framework of the information war. Perhaps the traces are scraped off particles of uranium, which, upon contact with metal from hexafluoride, turned into tetrafluoride and settled in the form of a green powder. And turned into production losses.
Even at the advanced production facilities of URENCO, losses can reach 10% of the total volume. At the same time, light uranium-235 enters into a corrosive reaction much more readily than its less mobile counterpart-238. How much uranium hexafluoride is lost during enrichment in Iranian centrifuges is anyone's guess. But we can guarantee that there are significant losses as well.
RESULTS AND PROSPECTS
Industrial separation (enrichment) of uranium is carried out in a dozen countries. The reason is the same as that declared by Iran: independence from imports of fuel for nuclear power plants. This is a question of strategic importance, because we are talking about the energy security of the state. Expenditures in this area are no longer considered.
Basically, these enterprises belong to URENCO or they buy centrifuges from the concern. Enterprises built in the 1990s in China are equipped with Russian cars of the fifth and sixth generations. Naturally, the inquisitive Chinese took apart the samples by screw and made exactly the same ones. However, there is a certain Russian secret in these centrifuges that no one can even reproduce, even understand what it consists of. Absolute copies do not work, even though you crack.
All those tons of Iranian enriched uranium, which foreign and domestic media scare the layman, are in fact tons of uranium hexafluoride. According to the available data, Iran has not yet even come close to producing uranium metal. And, it seems, is not going to deal with this issue in the near future. Therefore, all calculations of how many bombs Tehran can make from the available uranium are meaningless. You cannot make a nuclear explosive device out of hexafluoride, even if it can be brought to 90% uranium-235.
Several years ago, two Russian physicists inspected Iranian nuclear facilities. The mission is classified at the request of the Russian side. But, judging by the fact that the leadership and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation do not join the accusations against Iran, the danger of the creation of nuclear weapons by Tehran has not been detected.
Meanwhile, the United States and Israel are constantly threatening Iran with bombing, the country is harassed with economic sanctions, trying in this way to delay its development. The result is the opposite. Over 30 years of sanctions, the Islamic Republic has turned from a raw material into an industrial one. Here they make their own jet fighters, submarines and a lot of other modern weapons. And they understand very well that only the armed potential restrains the aggressor.
When the DPRK carried out an underground nuclear explosion, the tone of negotiations with it changed dramatically. It is not known what kind of device was blown up. And whether it was a real nuclear explosion or the charge "burned out", since the chain reaction should last milliseconds, and there are suspicions that it came out protracted. That is, the release of radioactive products occurred, but there was no explosion itself.
It's the same story with North Korean ICBMs. They were launched twice, and both times it ended in an accident. Obviously, they are not capable of flying, and it is unlikely that they will ever be able to. The poor DPRK does not have the appropriate technologies, industries, personnel, scientific laboratories. But Pyongyang is no longer threatened with war and bombing. And the whole world sees it. And makes reasonable conclusions.
Brazil has announced that it intends to build a nuclear submarine. Just like that, just in case. What if tomorrow someone does not like the Brazilian leader and wants to replace him?
Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi intends to return to the issue of Egypt's development of its own program for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Morsi made the announcement in Beijing, addressing the leaders of the Egyptian community in China. At the same time, the Egyptian president called nuclear energy "clean energy." The West has been silent on this issue so far.
Russia has a chance to create a joint venture with Egypt to enrich uranium. Then the chances that nuclear power plants will be built here according to Russian projects will sharply increase. And the reasoning about supposedly possible nuclear bombs will be left on the conscience of the landsknechts of information wars.
