• Iran plugs first nuclear power plant into grid
    34 replies, posted
[quote](Reuters) - Iran's first nuclear power plant has finally begun to provide electricity to the national grid, official media reported on Sunday, a long-delayed milestone in the nuclear ambitions of a country the West fears is covertly try to develop atomic bombs. "The Atomic Energy Agency announced that atomic electricity from Bushehr power plant joined the national grid with a power of around 60 megawatts on Saturday at 2329 (1859 GMT)," the official news agency IRNA reported. The start-up will come as a relief to Tehran after many years of delays and false starts at the plant it hopes will show the world it has joined the nuclear club despite sanctions imposed in an attempt to curb its disputed nuclear progress. The $1-billion, 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant will be formally inaugurated on September 12, by which time it will be operating at 40 percent capacity, Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), told the state-controlled Arabic language TV station al-Alam. The AEOI was not immediately available to comment. The plant on the Gulf coast is the first of what Iran says will become a network of nuclear facilities that will reduce its reliance on its abundant fossil fuels and is a showpiece of what it says is a purely peaceful atomic programme. Bushehr's start-up comes with Russia pushing to revive talks between global powers and Iran about its separate uranium enrichment work, seen abroad as a potential proliferation threat since highly refined uranium fuels atomic bombs. Iran says it is enriching uranium only to lower levels suitable for power plant fuel or medical and agricultural uses. But it has also started shifting its most sensitive enrichment operations to a mountain bunker that would be better protected against a possible pre-emptive U.S. or Israeli military strike. FANFARE Started by Germany's Siemens in the 1970s before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Bushehr project was taken over by Russian engineers in the 1990s. Delays fueled speculation Moscow was using the project as a diplomatic lever over Iran. Nuclear fuel rods were transported into the reactor building amid great media fanfare more than a year ago, but were not loaded into the reactor until later in 2010 and even then had to be removed due to technical problems. As recently as last month Iran told U.N. inspectors it had temporarily shut down the Bushehr reactor for technical reasons and, separately, a special said the plant was still a long way from joining the grid. But analysts were not entirely surprised by Sunday's news. "They have been doing the tests on it for some time. It is certainly no surprise that they are doing it around now," said Malcolm Grimston, a nuclear expert at London's Chatham House. "It is a milestone in the sense that it is their first full scale power reactor but it doesn't change any of the major arguments (about Iran's wider nuclear programme)," he said. London-based nuclear proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick said: "So many announcements have been made about imminent plans to connect Bushehr to the grid that it's hardly newsworthy now that it has actually happened." On the fact that Bushehr was only running at 6 percent capacity, he said: "They are wise, of course, to take it slow. Bushehr has had too many problems for the operators to risk nuclear safety by trying to meet artificial political deadlines." Experts say firing up the Bushehr plant will not bring Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb because Russia will supply the enriched uranium for the reactor and repatriate spent fuel that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. Fears have been voiced over potential safety problems for Bushehr which, like Fukushima, the site of Japan's devastating nuclear melt-down, is in a major earthquake zone, albeit not one at risk of a tsunami. The U.N. nuclear watchdog (IAEA) has urged Iran to join the 1996 Convention on Nuclear Safety, a treaty designed to improve safeguards after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. An IAEA official said Iran would be the only country operating a nuclear power plant not to belong to the convention. (Additional reporting Parisa Hafezi and by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)[/quote] [url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/04/us-iran-nuclear-bushehr-idUSTRE7830HQ20110904[/url] Just tought I'd post this, while many developed nations are having a furious debate on the safety of nuclear reactors right now, Iran just goes on under international pressure, and developes their own with the help of the ruskies.
better than oil I say
[QUOTE=Lambeth;32116302]better than oil I say[/QUOTE] Nuclear cars.
They're going to use it to power bombs and nuke israel with it! We must bomb it immediately!
Okay. Nuclear energy is good if they have the right safety precautions.
Well they should worry about earthquake and the ocational Israeli jets. At least they got a lot of sand to kill a meltdown with.
[QUOTE=lukepker;32116321]Nuclear cars.[/QUOTE] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon[/url]
[QUOTE=Sexy Eskimo;32116727]Well they should worry about earthquake and the ocational Israeli jets. At least they got a lot of sand to kill a meltdown with.[/QUOTE] Actually, iran doesn't have a lot of sand.
[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;32116965][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon[/url][/QUOTE] Looks like something out of fallout 3
I'd like to know what model reactor it is, because the way Iran has been acting it seriously feels like another country that could pull off the exact order of events that lead to Chernobyl.
[QUOTE=Sir Spicy Buns;32117300]Looks like something out of fallout 3[/QUOTE] Thats what they're based on
It'd be nice if they signed up the nuclear safety convention. I'm not entirely convinced of the safety of a plant that was designed and started to be built, left for a decade (during which it got airstriked) then finished by a seperate company. Oh, and the Iranian government made the Russian company use parts the Germans had left behind (with little documentation) in a Russian designed generator, while Germany decided not to help. I'm pro-nuclear power, and I don't think this has much to do with a nuclear weapons program, but this sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Iran wants to help it's citizens by supplying cheap and efficient energy. Yet we are freaking out over it despite the fact that Pakistan, which is right next to it, has nuclear WEAPONS and an extremely unstable government.
let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE] stop being an idiot.
Wasn't Stuxnet created with the purpose of blowing these things up, or something? [editline]5th September 2011[/editline] Like, nuclear power plants [I]specifically[/I] in Iran?
i imagined them literally plugging a power station into the grid.
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE] Who are you suggesting hands out nuclear power? If a country wants to build a nuclear power plant it is up to them and no one else at all. [editline]5th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Camundongo;32117537]It'd be nice if they signed up the nuclear safety convention. I'm not entirely convinced of the safety of a plant that was designed and started to be built, left for a decade (during which it got airstriked) then finished by a seperate company. Oh, and the Iranian government made the Russian company use parts the Germans had left behind (with little documentation) in a Russian designed generator, while Germany decided not to help. I'm pro-nuclear power, and I don't think this has much to do with a nuclear weapons program, but this sounds like an accident waiting to happen.[/QUOTE] Oh god, I think them having a nuclear weapons program would be safer.
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE]Because you can totally make a bomb out of a nuke plant.
This'll end well.
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE] "Hand out"? They built this themselves with the help of Russia, it wasn't "handed to them".
Looks like assasination and sabotage wasn't enough to stop them. [QUOTE=Megafanx13;32121639]help of Russia[/QUOTE] COMMUNIST PLOT!!!1
[QUOTE=Falchion;32122433]COMMUNIST PLOT!!!1[/QUOTE] Obviously.
[QUOTE=Megafanx13;32121639]"Hand out"? They built this themselves with the help of Russia, it wasn't "handed to them".[/QUOTE] Well, they contracted pretty much the entire work to German/Russian companies, but it cost them €3 billion to do so.
And lives of several nuclear scientists.
[QUOTE=Camundongo;32122560]Well, they contracted pretty much the entire work to German/Russian companies, but it cost them €3 billion to do so.[/QUOTE] Sounds fair to me, what's the problem? It's a power plant.
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE] yeahmmerica
[QUOTE=Megafanx13;32123745]Sounds fair to me, what's the problem? It's a power plant.[/QUOTE]It would be really nice if they just kept it as a power plant. You and I both know better than that, they're going to test a bomb eventually, just like North Korea did JUST to piss everyone off. In a perfect world, they would be content with nuclear power, develop the shit out of their nation and try to be the best thing since sliced bread. Though this is not a perfect world because unicorns, dragons and hot forest nymphs who try to seduce you at every opportunity don't exist.
[QUOTE=cccritical;32120577]let's just start handing out nuclear power like candy to all the nations that act like rebellious teens and can't keep their shit together for a week[/QUOTE] But the USA already has nuclear plants [editline]5th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;32124492]It would be really nice if they just kept it as a power plant. You and I both know better than that, they're going to test a bomb eventually, just like North Korea did JUST to piss everyone off. In a perfect world, they would be content with nuclear power, develop the shit out of their nation and try to be the best thing since sliced bread. Though this is not a perfect world because unicorns, dragons and hot forest nymphs who try to seduce you at every opportunity don't exist.[/QUOTE] You can't turn a power plant into a bomb. A power plant doesn't even help you research making a bomb unless you count the lightbulbs in the bomb-making room it keeps on.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;32124575]But the USA already has nuclear plants [editline]5th September 2011[/editline] You can't turn a power plant into a bomb. A power plant doesn't even help you research making a bomb unless you count the lightbulbs in the bomb-making room it keeps on.[/QUOTE]Uh, I know that. You can put more than one thing in a building. This is called "keeping your huge no-no nuclear weapons program a secret by hiding the equipment for processing uranium into weapons-grade material in your uranium-consuming power plant." Don't rate me dumb if you really didn't figure that part out.
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