1342) Radioatividade persa: contaminacao diplomatica (subsidios)

Sobre o post 1338, abaixo, com o mesmo título, um leitor atento, e bem informado, remeteu-me, em comentário anônimo, a um site de um instituto especializado no estudo e follow-up dos proliferadores habituais (que aliás são muitos).
O Institute for Peace and International Security (link) segue as atividades nucleares de uma serie de Estados, nomeadamente os seguintes:

Countries
* Algeria
* India
* Iran
* Iraq
* Korean Peninsula
* Libya
* Myanmar
* Pakistan
* South Africa
* Syria
* Taiwan
* Yugoslavia

(PRA: A "península coreana" não é exatamente "um" país, mas dois, mais passons...)

Transcrevo o início e o final de um relatório sobre nosso aliado no Oriente Médio:

ISIS Reports
Iran’s Gas Centrifuge Program: Taking Stock
by David Albright and Christina Walrond
February 11, 2010

Table of Contents
1. Understanding Enrichment at Natanz
2. First Principles
3. More advanced centrifuges coming? A secret site?
4. Natanz and the P1 Centrifuge
5. Separative Capacity of Iran’s P1 Centrifuge
6. Building a Centrifuge Plant
7. LEU Production
8. Taking Stock, Analyzing FEP Performance
9. Reasons for Sub-Optimal Performance
10. Implications on the Fordow Enrichment Site
11. Findings and Conclusion
12. Figures and Tables
13. Appendix: LEU Production Data

1. Understanding Enrichment at Natanz
The Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) has now operated for over two years with several thousand IR-1 centrifuges. Iran has enough centrifuges to produce a significant quantity of weapon-grade uranium, if it decided to do so. Yet, it is far from being able to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear power reactor.
It is natural to ask how well the IR-1 centrifuges are operating and to chart their performance. But assessing what Iran has achieved at the FEP remains difficult because Iran reveals little centrifuge performance information to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the IAEA in turn reveals even less publicly in either its safeguards reports or during interviews. Complicating any assessment, the public information has often been ambiguous or subject to subsequent revision. Thus, the data contained in IAEA reports are not sufficient alone to answer many questions about Natanz’s progress.
For example, every three months in its safeguards reports, the IAEA reveals the number of IR-1 centrifuges operating with uranium hexafluoride (UF6) on a given day.The inspectors do not however verify whether that number of centrifuges is actually producing low enriched uranium (LEU), or whether they receive enough information from Iran to determine the average number of centrifuges enriching during any extended period. The absence of such information, which would incorporate data about breakdowns and maintenance, complicates any comparison of the FEP’s production of low enriched uranium to expected LEU output.
One useful measure of a plant’s enrichment output is to estimate the average enrichment output, or separative capacity, of an IR-1 centrifuge. But doing this requires knowing the number of centrifuges actually enriching, the very value that is unreliable. Similar problems confront other standard measures of enrichment performance. Nonetheless, a comparative analysis of the FEP’s performance is possible.

(...)

11. Findings and Conclusion

Iran is likely to concentrate on increasing its LEU output at Natanz, improving operation of its centrifuges, and building the Fordow enrichment plant. Now that Fordow is discovered, it could be planning or building another secret enrichment site.

Iran’s problems in its centrifuge program are greater than expected one year ago. How much this has slowed Iran’s ability to make weapon-grade uranium is difficult to determine. However, Iran has almost 9,000 centrifuges at Natanz and the ability to make many thousands more either at Natanz or elsewhere. Despite the problems demonstrated at the FEP, Iran is unlikely to face significant delays in making weapon-grade uranium at Natanz, if it decided to build nuclear weapons. Starting with natural uranium, Iran could likely still produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in a year; it could do so considerably faster if it started with its stock of already produced low enriched uranium. But in 2010 Iran may be limited in its ability to produce weapon-grade uranium outside of the Natanz site, either in a breakout mode using its existing stock of LEU or in a parallel effort in a secret site starting with natural uranium.

In the end, Iran can solve its centrifuge problems with time, either by improving the output of the P1 centrifuge or building more of them, or both. In the medium term, it can also deploy more advanced centrifuges. Given its announced plans to build ten more enrichment plants without notifying the IAEA about their location or status until six months before it introduces nuclear material, Iran’s capability to make weapon-grade uranium either in a secret parallel program or in a breakout is likely to grow with time.

Iran’s progress at the FEP bears special watching to determine if Iranian technicians can overcome the plant’s problems and operate the centrifuges better. Because of the importance of this issue to the international community, the IAEA should release more data about the FEP’s operation.

Iran is expected to continue seeking equipment, materials, and technology abroad for its centrifuge effort. Disrupting these efforts through increased vigilance on stopping illicit trade of dual-use materials and components can delay its centrifuge program and prevent the transfer of knowledge that could help Iran solve its problems in building and deploying not only the IR-1 centrifuge but more advanced ones as well.

One can also expect more efforts by western intelligence services to place defective equipment in Iran’s centrifuge program. Given that Iran acquires much of this equipment illegally, such efforts are hard to condemn. However, predicting the impact of such efforts is impossible.

The best way to constrain Iran’s enrichment program remains negotiations aimed at achieving a suspension of its program. Iran is unlikely to deploy enough gas centrifuges to make enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power reactors for a long time, if ever, particularly if sanctions remain in force. As such, one of the most striking lessons of reviewing Iran’s accomplishments at Natanz is just how unachievable a commercial enrichment program remains while how little is required to create a nuclear weapons capability. While Iran may take longer than expected to make sufficient weapon-grade uranium for a bomb, few believe it will fail in that effort.

Comentário final PRA:
O estudo tem uma série de tabelas com dados e gráficos para o público especializado. Para simples civis ignorantes em grande medida dos detalhes técnicos do programa nuclear iraniano, como este que aqui escreve, resta, porém, uma certeza: os dirigentes iranianos estão dispostos a seguir em frente.
Acredito, pessoalmente, que o mundo não ficará melhor com essa perspectiva...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida (14.02.2010)