More HEU found in Iran

Hot in more ways than just two. The IAEA has found more traces of highly-enriched uranium (the kind used in weapons) in Iran:

VIENNA, Austria – The U.N. atomic agency has found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country’s defense ministry, diplomats said Friday. The finding added to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared close to or beyond weapons grade — the level used to make nuclear warheads.

Presumably, like President Ahmadinejad’s letter earlier this week, this is part of a confidence-building exercise.

The same article appears on Breitbart. I’ll update if any more details are forthcoming.

UPDATE: Reuters has a lot more—

In its April report to the UN Security Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it took samples from equipment that had been acquired by a former research center at Lavizan-Shiyan. The center was razed in 2004 before IAEA inspectors could examine it.

The IAEA inspectors took swabs from vacuum pumps earlier this year which were subjected to microscopic particle analysis, diplomats said. Vacuum pumps are dual-use but are needed when enriching uranium with a cascade of interconnected centrifuges.

“Preliminary analysis by the IAEA showed traces of highly enriched uranium in the (pump) samples,” a Western diplomat accredited to the IAEA told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The former physics center at Lavizan, which advised the defense ministry, acquired some dual-use machinery useable for uranium enrichment, including vacuum pumps.

A diplomat in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, confirmed the new finding but warned against exaggerating its significance: “It’s no smoking gun. There could be many explanations. But it increases pressure on Iran to come clean about Lavizan.”

The article goes on to speculate about the possibility of a second parallel development program in Iran.

1 comment… add one
  • Glenmore Link

    Sounds like the IAEA has discovered a new, highly efficient method of concentrating U235 – the swab. Now if only they can figure out how to scale it up.

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