Is Iran Running Out of Uranium?

[bananas]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1984657,00.html

Is Iran Running Out of Uranium?
By Vivienne Walt Tuesday, Apr. 27, 2010

Western governments may be scrambling to push through tougher international sanctions against Iran, but the Islamic Republic's nuclear program may be facing a more immediate hurdle: How to replenish its dwindling uranium stocks.

Iran's need to find fresh supplies of raw uranium supplies is increasingly urgent, according to some reports. That may be one reason for the bear hug President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe last Thursday, when the Iranian leader landed in Harare on the first leg of an African trip. An anonymous Zimbabwe government source told Britain's Telegraph newspaper last Friday that his country's Minister of Presidential Affairs, Didymus Mutasa, had made a secret deal with Iran last month during a visit to Tehran, under which the Iranians would provide the sanctions-battered southern African country with critically needed oil supplies, in exchange for what he called "the exclusive uranium rights" in Zimbabwe.

Neither Iran nor Zimbabwe has confirmed the uranium deal, which could violate U.N. sanctions, and on Monday an official from Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change, the minority partner in the coalition government, denied the report, insisting that "no such agreement was signed." Zimbabwe is believed to have large uranium deposits, discovered during the 1970s, which have never been mined.

Iran's uranium stockpile is 30 years old, dating to the early 1980s, when South Africa sold it about 531 tons of yellowcake, the powder produced from the raw uranium dug from the ground which is enriched in order to create nuclear reactor fuel (or, potentially, bomb material). Of that supply, the country has only "a relatively small stock" left, according a report last December by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, which tracks Iran's nuclear industry. Much of Iran's yellowcake has been refined into uranium hexafluoride, which is kept under scrutiny by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is a signatory. Iran's current stockpile of low-enriched uranium, if enriched to weapons grade — a process that would require Iran kicking out the inspectors and thereby unambiguously declaring its intentions — would be enough to create a single nuclear bomb. But it is a lot less than Iran needs to fuel a nuclear reactor for energy purposes, let alone build several nuclear weapons that would constitute a credible nuclear arsenal.

Iran says its purpose in enriching uranium is to simply create fuel for a nuclear reactor to provide electricity, although Western powers doubt that its intentions are entirely benign. Still, whatever the program's purpose, it is potentially hobbled without a secure supply of uranium. "We know that they are short (of uranium) for a nuclear energy program," says David Albright, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq and president of ISIS. "If you don't have uranium you don't have anything."

<snip>

Last November, an IAEA intelligence report leaked to the Associated Press said that Iran was close to buying 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan — one of the world's biggest uranium producers — for $450 million, in "a deal to be signed soon." That deal appears to have been scuttled after the report became public. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev met privately with President Obama in Washington while attending the White House nuclear summit on April 11, and agreed to allow U.S. military planes to fly over the huge former Soviet Republic in order to resupply troops in Afghanistan, and to work together on non-proliferation.

<snip>

[Statistical]

1. Very good article and further evidence Iran program is purely militarily.

Iran is uranium poor.

98% of worlds supply of Uranium are found in these countries:
Canada
Australia
Kazakhstan
Russia
Niger
Namibia
Uzbekistan
USA
Ukraine
China
South Africa

Iran will never have enough domestic uranium to run an nuclear energy program. They don't even have a tiny fraction of what they need. So an enrichment facility would still require lots of foreign uranium to supply an energy program. Their violaiton of NPT has resulted in sanctions prohibiting them from importing uranium thus their unilateral enrichment has the exact opposite effect of energy security.

However a bomb requires much less uranium so they have enough to make weapons.
1 GW reactor = 100 tons uranium oxide annually
1 Hiroshima bomb = 8 tons uranium oxide

Iran can't build a peaceful nuclear ENERGY program unilaterally, they will need to work within the international community to do so. They can unilaterally build a bomb though and there is nothing world can really do about it unless Iran decides to abandon it.

Iran can have either nuclear energy program or nuclear bomb. They are choosing a nuclear bomb. The cover of peaceful nuclear energy isn't even a credible one for the reasons I outlined.

[happyslug]

6. But unlike Fossil fuels, we do NOT have a rough idea where all the Uranium is

In fact Iran is considered a hot property for possible Uranium extraction. Unlike fossil fuels, which exist in areas that at one time had been on the surface (often under water in the case of oil and natural gas) and then had other material deposited OVER them to preserve them for our later use, all of the Uranium on this planet have been on this planet since it was formed. Furthermore recent theory (and some experiments that supports the theory) states that the reason the earth has a volcanic core is that when the Earth was young the heaviest elements (Uranium) sank to the center of the earth and went super critical (i.e. the earth is one big Fission reactor). Now this uranium core provides the heat that melts the surrounding iron outer core and occasionally shoots Uranium to the surface. The Uranium this sent to the surface has varied since the formation of this planet but we can NOT exclude any area from having Uranium without actual testing AND that testing must include deep mines.

Today, Canada produces 25% of all uranium produced in the world, followed closely by Australia and then Kazakhstan (at 15% of world production). These three countries produce over 50% of all Uranium presently being mined. The primary reason for Australia production is that it has some of the oldest solid ground on the planet and as such has the easiest to access uranium. Younger pieces of ground tend to have less uranium (Do more to the uranium being buried by subsequent forms of earth then anything else).

As to Canada its uranium production is located in the Canadian West (as America's production is located in the American West) for these areas have seen deep parts of the planet being brought up to the surface by the movement of the tectonic plates as the plates come into contact and one plate over rides another (as is happening as the North American Plate goes up as it climbs over and forces down the pacific ocean plate). During this process materials from deep underground are pushed to the surface.

Iran is undergoing a similar process and as such has the potential to have Uranium. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are the northern part of the same tectonic movement that is affecting Iran and that process has exposed large amount of Uranium.

Now, as of right now, Iran is officially Uranium poor, but there is strong evidence that will NOT always be the case (and may NOT be the case even today). Thus to call Iran Uranium poor may NOT be supported by the evidence. Just pointing out that the any statement that Iran is poor in Uranium may NOT be true given what we know of where Uranium tends to be located on this planet.

For more on Iran domestic Uranium production:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/mines.htm
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aMtzNb9WS83I&pos=13

Earth as a Nuclear reactor:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/earth-03k.html
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3056672
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080515/full/news.2008.822.html

1993 paper on the subject of the earth being a fission reactor:
http://www.nuclearplanet.com/Herndon%20JGG93.pdf

[Statistical]

7. True but think about it logically.

IF you are Iran and your goal is peaceful nuclear power.

Wouldn't you explore to find out if you HAVE any uranium and what yield it is and what it will cost to extract and mill FIRST
THEN build a $5 billion enrichment facility?

Enrichment facility w/ no domestic supply of uranium isn't energy security.
It would be like saying US has refineries so we should keep using oil because the refiners give us energy security.

However if you have a small amount of purchased uranium (500 tons) and you goal is to build a dozen bombs (requires about 8 tons each) then building an enrichment facility first makes a lot sense right?

[LiberalFighter]

2. Don't tell them that plenty of raw uranium can be found

on the Sun, in the Andromeda Galaxy and Whirlpool Galaxy.

[Massacure]

3. Or that it can be extracted from sea water.

[Statistical]

4. Which would only make sense for a weapon.

Seawater extraction is currently 500% that of mined uranium.

Iran could purchase already processed, refined, enriched, and fabricated fuel ready for a reactor for a fraction of what just obtaining uranium from seawater would require.

Of course doing a fuel swap would mean Iran couldn't covertly build nuclear weapons.

[bemildred]

5. "Yellow cake! Yellow cake!". nt