 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . |  |
. |
Iran Uranium Facility '70 Percent' Operational: Official
A uranium conversion facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan, whose activities European states want to suspend, is now "70 percent" operational, an official from the country's nuclear agency said on Sunday. "Most of the equipment of the Isfahan factory has been built by Iranian scientists and it is 70 percent operational at the current time," said Mohammad Ghanadi, in charge of activities related to the combustion cycle at Iran's atomic agency. "After the end of cooperation with the Chinese, we grouped together our scientists and in less than four years we managed to complete the construction of these installations," he said in comments broadcast on state television. "The installations in Isfahan cover a space of 60 hectares (150 acres) and have 60 units and 15,000 machine tools, most of which were built by Iranian experts," he added. The Isfahan facility should allow Iran to convert uranium yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, a gas used in the centrifuges that are employed to enrich uranium. Depending on the level of purification, enriched uranium can be used either as fuel for a civilian reactor or as the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. Iran insists it only wants to generate electricity. Ghanadi also revealed that Iran was "prospecting in most regions of the country to find uranium mines", and said that four such mines had already been discovered. "We hope that we will be able to exploit the mine in Saghand (central Iran) from the second quarter of 2005," he said. On Thursday European countries had asked Iran to suspend the activities of the Isfahan factory as they offered a deal to Tehran to halt uranium enrichment activities in exchange for technical assistance. On September 18, the UN nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - passed a resolution calling on Iran to suspend all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including conversion activities at its Isfahan facility. All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
France Says Future Is Nuclear With New Generation Of Power-Plants
Paris (AFP) Oct 21, 2004France staked its claim to remain a world leader in atomic energy Thursday by announcing that it will build the first of a new generation of pressurised water nuclear plants at a site on the Normandy coast.
|
|
| |||||||||
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service. |
