Iraq News Now

Iran has quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium,

semi-official news agencies reported Monday, just days after saying it would

resume higher levels of enrichment if world powers do not repair the nuclear

accord following the US withdrawal from it last year.

The semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies say the

increased production is of uranium enriched to 3.67%, enough for civilian

applications and nowhere near the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. But a

quadrupling of production would mean that Iran likely will go beyond the

stockpile limitations set by the deal.

Higher enrichment would mean exceeding the level of potency

allowed by the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. Tehran is threatening

to resume higher enrichment on July 7 if no new agreement is reached to provide

relief from US sanctions.

Enriching a supply of uranium means boosting its

concentration of the type of uranium that can power a nuclear reaction. That

type, or isotope, is called U-235. Enrichment basically means stripping away

atoms of another isotope, called U-238.

When uranium is mined, it typically has about 140 atoms of

this unwanted isotope for every atom of U-235, notes Christopher Chyba of

Princeton University. Refining it to a purity of 3.67%, the level now allowed

by the nuclear deal, means removing 114 unwanted atoms of U-238 for every atom

of U-235.

Boosting its purity to 20% means removing 22 more unwanted

isotopes per atom of U-235, while going from there to 90% purity means removing

just four more per atom of U-235, he noted.

So once one achieves 20% purity on the way to 90%, “you’re

most of the way there already,” Chyba said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly said

last week that achieving 20% “is the most difficult part... The next steps are

easier than this step.” Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20%

previously.

Matthew Bunn at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of

Government said the same centrifuge technology used to reach 3.67% can be used

to drive enrichment to 90%.

Once Tehran had enough uranium enriched to 20%, it would

only be weeks away from a bomb if it decided to build one, he said. A bomb’s

worth of highly enriched uranium “could be the size of a very large

grapefruit,” Bunn said.

Iran says it has never sought nuclear weapons. But Western

officials and experts say that prior to the nuclear deal, Iran had a breakout

capability of just a few months if it were to decide to build a bomb. The Obama

administration, which negotiated the deal, said it extended that breakout

period to one year or more, giving Western powers more time to detect any such

decision and respond to it.