Iran’s Nuclear File and Security in Persian Gulf

1. Iran’s Nuclear Fileand Security in Persian Gulf Abbas Maleki Landau Network, Stanley Foundation Tremezzo, Italy April 25 10, 2007

2. What I want to say • Theories of Nuclear Proliferation and Restraint • Few Options for Iran to end the crises • Nuclear Technology and security Arrangement In Persian Gulf • How to deal with Iran

3. Theories of NuclearProliferation and Restraint Proliferation Restraint • Regime • Norms • Alliance/no threat • Pressure • Electoral politics • Liberalization • Lack resources • Democracy • Security threats • Prestige (status) • Regional/other ambitions • Organizational politics • State building • Electoral politics

4. Iran’s Nuclear History

5. Iran’s Nuclear History (2)

6. Iran’s Nuclear History (3)

7. Iran’s advantages • Iran’s enormous reserves of oil and natural gas make it a significant factor in the global fossil fuel market and provide Tehran with its own economic leverage.   • Iran has an extensive trading relationship with the European Union, • A burgeoning energy relationship with China, • A longstanding commercial nuclear relationship with Russia.  • Billions and tens of billions of dollars are at stake  • Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels understand that they cannot significantly hurt Iran without also hurting themselves • Membership to Shanghai Cooperation Organization

8. Iran’s Energy Reserves by Type

9. Iran’s Energy Reserves

10. Iranian uranium fuel cycle path Esfahan 6 2 2 Isfahan Isfahan 5 Bushehr Fuel fabrication 4 3 Natanz Isfahan 1 Saghand/Yazd Area

11. Iran’s centrifuge Industrial plant • Plan: • Test single P1 centrifuge with “nuclear material” (UF6) • Test a “cascade” of 10 P1’s with UF6. • Test 19 P1s in a cascade. • Run a cascade of 168 P1s. • Run the second cascade of 164 P1s • Run 9 cascade of 164 P1s • Matching together?

12. Joint Enrichment Facility in Iran • Commercial consortium of the major nuclear fuel suppliers that would guarantee fuel supply if problems arose with the multinational facility • An MNA must provide both assured access to fuel for Iran and • Assurance to the international community that the enrichment facility or technology will not be turned to military purposes. • The success or failure of any particular MNA proposal will depend on practical details such as -ownership structure, -Technical safeguards, -Questions about staffing, -Controls on and access to sensitive information.

13. Organizational Chart for Joint Venture Centrifuge leasing Workers Capital equipment

14. French Model • A French-led enrichment program announced recently by Mohammad Saidi • The development could take two different forms: -Either a brand new enrichment facility by an international holding company, or the conversion of the present Iranian enrichment program into one jointly owned and operated by Iran and outside governments. • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already envisioned the possibility of multi-lateral operation of existing facilities.

15. Iran & URENCO • Iran and Europe join together to build a state-of-the-art enrichment plant in Iran using URENCO’s most advanced centrifuges with the proviso that the centrifuges’ bottom bearings contain self destruct mechanisms that could deploy in the event of unauthorized use.

16. MIT-Harvard Initiative Two MIT’s scholars proposed the joint venture could be created as a holding company that would lease centrifuges from an outside source such as URENCO. • A typical URENCO facility, equipped with 50,000 advanced T-21 centrifuges, is capable of producing fuels for 42 of 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plants, like the one under construction in Bushehr.

17. The JV Centrifuge plant: We estimate that the facility will employ about 230 people: ~168 P1 Centrifuges Accountants Technicians Managers 60,000 T-21 centrifuges Employees will come from each of the partner countries. There will be employees from each country present 24/7. 5 Million SWU-kg/yr  support 42 reactors SWU: Separative Work Unit

18. Times and Costs • The T-21 centrifuge has not gone into mass production yet, however, we estimate from LES and George Besse II the costs associated with this facility: • $1.9 billion to $2.8 billion, depending on how much extra it might cost to build a high tech facility in a developing country. • Again from George Besse II, we estimate that the entire facility might take 7 years to build. • But it could be made in stages, with the first taking as little as 18 months. • Matt Bunn

19. P2 centrifuges are made of maraging steel with a bellows in the middle to handle “resonances.” The IAEA has been told that Iran cannot manufacture maraging steel bellows and so has produced shorter rotors.

20. Preventing “Nationalization” Technical Barriers: Political Barriers: Cascades will be setup as inflexibly as possible to prevent them from being quickly rearranged for producing HEU. “Self-destruct” mechanisms The bearing has very complex and difficult “groves”

21. Enrichment in Russian Soils • multinational enrichment center to produce fuel • Possibly in Russia, with Iran playing a central role in its management

22. Fuel Bank • An international fuel bank, with rules that would require it to step in and provide fuel unless the Security Council specifically voted to bar it from doing so

23. Stockpile in Iran • a stockpile within Iran itself.

24. Incentives for Iran • Multi-layered guarantees of a reliable fuel supply for a peaceful Iranian nuclear program; • Iranian agreement that large-scale enrichment will occur elsewhere, not in Iran, at least for a period; • Full Iranian cooperation with international inspectors, including ratification of the Agreed Protocol to safeguards • voluntary additional steps to clarify remaining questions about its past activities; • New Trade and Cooperation Agreement between Iran and Europe • Assurances from the United States and the other major powers that they will not attack Iran or attempt to overthrow its government as long as Iran complies with its nuclear obligations and does not commit or sponsor aggression against others.

25. What does Iran need? • Incentive package mentions • Respecting Iran's rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) • Firm guarantees on the proposed offers of nuclear assistance • Sale of light water reactors to Iran • Secured nuclear fuel supply • Iran seeks clarification on the status of U.S. sanctions which presently prohibit those offers of nuclear and technological assistance to Iran • Is the United States willing to lift some if not all of those sanctions?

26. European Incentives • The proposal presented by Javier Solana to Iran on June 5, 2006 contains most, but not all, the • necessary elements for a resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue. • The offer includes, a five-year guaranteed reactor fuel supply, • Access to advanced reactor technology for new projects, • Promises of increased trade and investment, and • Expanded cooperation in other areas, including civil aviation and development of the oil and gas sector.

27. Warm and Cold Standby • In 2000, the recently-privatized U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) announced that it planned to shut down the Portsmouth enrichment, one of the two U.S. gaseous diffusion enrichment plants, as there was not enough demand to require both of them. • The Department of Energy (DOE), which continued to own the Portsmouth and Paducah facilities while leasing them to USEC, developed a “warm standby” and a “cold standby” option for Portsmouth.

28. Warm Standby • Among the proposals and counterproposals seeking a resolution to this issue, one that is especially gaining momentum in some quarters of Europe and Iran is to allow Iran’s centrifuges to spin but with no uranium hexafluoride. • This would give Iran important knowledge of centrifuge cascade operations with proliferation risks

29. Warm Standby • Portions of the plant would have continued to operate in a “recycle mode,” in which, the product and waste from the cascade would be returned to the input • Material would cycle through the cascade without actually getting enriched, essentially just to keep that part of the cascade running. • The rest of the plant would have been shut down, but “fully buffered” with dry air pumped into the cascades to ensure that damp air would not get in and cause corrosion, potentially allowing a relatively rapid restart.

30. Cold Standby • The plant was to be entirely shut down, but with all of the cells buffered with dry air as above, and with constant surveillance and maintenance to ensure that it could be returned to operation reasonably quickly if needed. • Buffer alarms were to be installed on the cells to sound a warning if damp air began to leak in to any of them. • Some uranium deposits that had built up on parts of the cascades over the years, which could have blocked up the system as it moved to restart, were to be removed. • Restart in this case was expected to take up to two years. • The cost of this option was projected to be far less, $210 million total over four years.

31. How to deal with Iran? • Coercion has so far failed • More effective might be a package of inducements that included acceptance of and help for Iran’s ambitious civilian nuclear power program • Relaxation of existing economic sanctions against Iran • Establishment of a dialogue with Tehran on regional security: GCC + Iran & Iraq 

32. How to deal with Iran (2) • Withhold on Iran’s strength overestimation • Support democracy in Iran, not “Regime Change” • Refrain to involve Iran on Shia-Sunni confrontation • Insisting on monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities • Revival EU proposal on TCA

33. How to deal with Iran (3) • Engaging Iran to the regional activities in Persian Gulf to remove Confidence Gap • Reactivate of RAPMI environment program • Sharing Iranian companies to build new nuclear power plants in the region • Removing obstacles on Iran’s energy projects in Caspian Sea

34. Thank you maleki@caspianstudies.com