Iran and Uranium Enrichment.

You do just have to wonder sometimes. Here’s a report about the negotiations over the Iranian uranium enrichment efforts.

President George W Bush has backed a plan to allow Iran to enrich uranium in Russia. The sudden change in tactics over Teheran's controversial nuclear programme has angered hawks in Washington and surprised European diplomats.

Unfortunately there’s no discussion of why this is a good idea.

1) What we’re all worried about is Iran building a bomb. We really don’t care if they make low enriched uranium for a reactor. So, if the enrichment is going to take place elsewhere (assuming we trust the Russians) then we can know that  they are indeed only getting the low enriched, the stuff that doesn’t go bang.

In fact, the most likely offer is not that they will be able to buy (or manufacture in Russia) uranium at all, but full fuel rods only.

Something of a neat solution to the bomb proliferation worries.

2) It’s usual (although not certain, there might be an IEA rule about it) in these things to insist that fuel rods shipped out of a country have to be returned to that country for reprocessing. This is why Sellafield has so much traffic with Japan for example.  This keeps the plutonium out of people’s hands, another good thing.

So, fuel rods made in Russia and shipped back to be reprocessed means no high enriched uranium nor plutonium for Iran (unless they continue with their current programs as well).

Good eh?

It also overcomes one of the largest realpolitik problems in the whole system. Atomenergoexport, the Russian State nuclear people, have been rubbing their hands with glee for at least a decade (I’ve actually had a bureaucrat there telling me joyfully about how much they would make out of the contract) at the prospect of building the reprocessing plant for Iran. Getting them onside (given the way Russia works an essential move) by giving them the operating revenues of doing the fuel preparation and (one assumes) the reprocessing seems elegant.

All in all, assuming I’m right about what is actually being offered, it seems a neat piece of negotiating. How weird that it’s actually coming from Shrub.