INB is the state-run company that is responsible for providing Brazil's nuclear fuel.

Luiz C.S. Vieira, president of INB sat down recently at his offices in Rio de Janeiro for an interview with United Press International.

It's interesting to note Vieira's previous job was as president of Brazil's mining company, Vale do Rio Doce.

On the eve of the release of a comprehensive report detailing the revision of Brazil's entire nuclear program, Vieira is optimistic. If that report includes the decision to proceed with the construction of Brazil's third nuclear reactor, Angra III, all the better. INB lives basically to provide nuclear fuel for Brazil's reactors, according to Vieira. He also pointed out Brazil "already has 30 percent of the equipment necessary to complete Angra III."

The decision to proceed with the third reactor would be a boom for a state-run company that has encountered financial challenges during the last few years, when Brazil's nuclear program was been dormant.

"The revision of the program covers the next 18 years," he said. "We're optimistic because this decision (to build Angra III) would signify re-starting our entire (nuclear) program."

INB's experimental Uranium enrichment plant at Resende, in Rio de Janeiro, captured the world's headlines last year when Brazil barred inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, complete access to the plant's centrifuges, where the Uranium is enriched. The Brazilians said the centrifuges had a unique design and were therefore proprietary technology, which they had a right to protect; they placed the centrifuges behind a set of "panels."

Brazil and the IAEA have since worked out a tentative agreement and the Resende plant "is in the final phase" to receive approval from the U.N. watchdog, said Odair Goncalves , president of CNEN, Brazil's Atomic Energy Commission.

As a way to resolve the impasse last year, Vieira explained the Brazilians came up with an unusual verification method.

"We came up with an ingenuous idea. We didn't let them look behind the panels. But we asked for their passports, and right then and there, we took photos of their passports next to the sections of the centrifuges related to Uranium enrichment, so they could see that the Uranium wasn't being diverted. And with their passports in the photos, they could see we hadn't modified or hidden anything."

In an interview with UPI, CNEN's Goncalves acknowledged, however, there are certain sections of the centrifuges that the Brazilians just don't want others to see.

"The centrifuges have certain parameters which give out a lot of information about (their capabilities). For example, the diameter and the height and the rotation of the cylinder -- if you go to a technician and you find out the diameter, the height and the rotation of the cylinder itself, you will know its production capacity; how much it can produce. That is the industrial capacity knowledge that we want keep to ourselves," Gonclaves said.

But Goncalves is adamant Brazil's nuclear program has purely peaceful energy producing objectives.

"Brazil is not involved and does not intend to do research into any type of technology that is related to a bomb. We are, in fact, prohibited from doing this by our own Constitution. Our enrichment is 5 percent. Our reactors are only licensed for 5 percent. From there onward, the technical challenges are significant and not trivial, particularly when it comes to the 50 percent barrier."

Vieira believes that "just by seeing the approximate size of the centrifuges, which the inspectors could do, one can ascertain that our centrifuges cannot be used to enrich uranium 95 percent, which is what is required for atomic bomb grade material."

The Brazilian navy designed Brazil's centrifuges.

"We at INB don't even know anything about the inside of the centrifuges ourselves," Vieira said. "The Brazilian Navy basically brings them in, enclosed and locked up, and takes them out, enclosed and locked-up, when they need maintenance. At INB, we just operate them."

President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's former chief of staff, Jose Dirceu, told UPI Brazil considers the centrifuge technology "a strategic intellectual property" for the country and should be protected accordingly.

Who is in charge of protecting this unique technology? According to Vieira, it is Brazil's intelligence service, Agencia Brasiliera de Informacao.

Vieira believes through its proprietary centrifuge technology, Brazil saves 25 percent in costs (in relation to others) in producing enriched uranium.

"I don't know, it may be that our superior technology might frighten the international community because Brazil can do this so cheaply," Vieira said.

He also suggested Brazil may someday "sell or export the centrifuge service, (not the centrifuge), to others."

The global commercial market for enriched uranium, Vieira pointed out, is $6 billion dollars a year, with enrichment "clearly being the most lucrative segment of the market."

"Brazil only wants 2 percent of that market," he said.

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