Iran to build 2 new 1000-megawatt reactors

Teheran will issue tenders open to domestic and international firms within the next two months.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, AP
Iran Nuclear 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
Iran Nuclear 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Iran announced on Wednesday that it is planning to build two new gigawatt (1,000-megawatt) nuclear reactors. Teheran will issue tenders open to domestic and international firms within the next two months, Israel Radio reported. In April, Iranian Deputy Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi said that 54,000 centrifuges would be able to produce enough enriched uranium to provide fuel for a gigawatt nuclear power plant like the one Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. The Bushehr plant, which is nearing completion, is currently Iran's only gigawatt plant, though its parliament has approved plans to produce at least 20 gigwatts using nuclear power by 2020. Iran is still a long way from producing 54,000 centrifuges. So far, Iran's small-scale enrichment has used only 164 centrifuges. The centrifuges spin uranium gas to increase its proportion of the isotope needed for the nuclear fission that occurs at the heart of a nuclear reactor or a bomb. Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at its facility in the central town of Natanz by late 2006, said Iranian Deputy Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi. He added that there were plans to expand the facility to 54,000 centrifuges, though he did not specify when. "We will expand uranium enrichment to an industrial scale at Natanz," Saeedi told state-run television. Meanwhile, in other news coming out of Iran, the official Iranian news agency (IRNA) reported Tuesday that Ahmed Ahmadinejad, father of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had died early Tuesday morning at a Teheran hospital. The 82-year-old Ahmadinejad died of a heart stroke. Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei of Iran expressed his condolences to Ahmadinejad on death of the his father.