Iran had US Assisted 23,000 MWe Nuclear Program

Iran had US Assisted 23,000 MWe Nuclear Program



This is story of how Iran the most powerful nation in middle-east with US assistance planned 23,000 MWe nuclear power development program with due compliance.



Iran was getting reactors, uranium, enrichment & fuel processing technology.



Politics destroyed Iran. Its economy lags behind nations in the region just ahead of Iraq hovering at $4500 level – a tenth of Kuwait or Dubai.



Three decades later L.K. Advani & Prakash Karat failed to repeat Khomeini act.



Ravinder Singh

July27, 2008



The TNRC was equipped with a U.S.-supplied, 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor, which became operational in 1967 and was fueled by highly enriched uranium. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 and ratified it in 1970. With the establishment of Iran's atomic agency and the NPT in place, the Shah approved plans to construct, with U.S. help, up to 23 nuclear power stations by the year 2000.



In March 1974, the Shah envisioned a time when the world's oil supply would run out, and declared, "Petroleum is a noble material, much too valuable to burn... We envision producing, as soon as possible, 23 000 megawatts of electricity using nuclear plants." Bushehr would be the first plant, and would supply energy to the inland city of Shiraz. In 1975, the Bonn firm Kraftwerk Union AG, a joint venture of Siemens AG and AEG Telefunken, signed a contract worth $4 to $6 billion to build the pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant. Construction of the two 1,196 MWe nuclear generating units was subcontracted to ThyssenKrupp, and was to have been completed in 1981.



"President Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete 'nuclear fuel cycle'." At the time, Richard Cheney was the White House Chief of Staff, and Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense. The Ford strategy paper said the "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran



The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.



After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Iranian government temporarily disbanded elements of the program, and then revived it with less Western assistance than during the pre-revolution era. Iran's nuclear program has included several research sites, a uranium mine, a nuclear reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include a uranium enrichment plant.



Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr I, is expected to be operational in March 2008 and delivering its maximum capacity to the nation's power grid by March 2009. There are no current plans to complete the Bushehr II reactor, although the construction of 19 nuclear power plants is envisaged. Iran has announced that it is working on a new 360 MWe nuclear power plant to be located in Darkhoyen. Iran has also indicated it that it will seek more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines for the future.