Russia: Nuclear Fuel Being Reloaded At Iran Plant

[Purveyor]

Source: REUTERS

By Alexei Anishchuk

MOSCOW | Fri Apr 8, 2011 8:32pm IST

(Reuters) - Nuclear fuel is once again being loaded into the reactor of Iran's Bushehr power plant, the Russian company that built the station said on Friday, after the latest in a series of delays to its launch.

Russia has built Iran's first nuclear power plant under a $1 billion deal dating back to the 1990s. The project has long been a focus of attention because of global concern that Tehran's nuclear programme could be aimed at developing weapons.

The plant near the Persian Gulf had been due to start producing electricity early this year after the process of loading nuclear fuel into the reactor core got under way last October.

But Russia and Iran said late in February that the fuel would have to be taken back out of the reactor because broken pumps had sent small pieces of metal into the cooling system, raising fears that fuel rods could be damaged.

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/04/08/idINIndia-56213920110408

[jtuck004]

1. If we could just get TEPCO to operate it that might solve our problems with Iran... eom

[bananas]

2. There are a lot more problems with this plant, according to the Russian scientists working on-site

The plant was supposed to go online in February,
the Russian scientists working onsite were so concerned about the many serious problems,
they appealed to the Kremlin to give them several more months of testing,
after the Kremlin didn't take action, "somebody" leaked the letter to the UK press,
and after extreme pressure from the scientists and engineers,
the Iranian and Russian bureaucracies finally relented,
I posted some links here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4749479&mesg_id=4749501
Those are links to discussion threads, each thread has links to various news and science articles.
(Sometimes people complain when I post a link to a discussion thread instead of one particular article,
but these are complex issues and each article only covers a small part,
and I don't want to rehash all the discussion.)

[jtuck004]

3. Thank you for those posts. eom