How will Iran increase its nuclear power

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In a message issued to the nation, President Hassan Rouhani has given two months’ time to other countries involved in the agreement to fulfill their commitments.

Iran has said that the United Nations body monitoring nuclear programs can monitor it and Iran will withdraw its footsteps only when all the members of the agreement are fully implemented. Last year, the United States had separated itself from the nuclear deal in 2015 and imposed many restrictions on Iran.

Iran then announced a breach of the agreement and increased the amount of uranium collected under the agreement.

Iran has been saying that its nuclear program is completely peaceful. But the United States believes that Iran can develop nuclear weapons.

President Rouhani said that from Friday this week Iran will increase uranium enrichment and new centrifuges will be made for this.

Where will the new centrifuges be made

The head of Iran’s nuclear agency told reporters last year that they are working on a framework to develop modern centrifuges at the ‘Natanz’ nuclear center.

The Natanz nuclear center, located about 200 miles from Tehran, has been Iran’s main uranium enrichment center.

According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, there are three big buildings three and above the ground and where around 50,000 centrifuges can be put together.

Uranium ores have two types of isotopes (U isotopes) – U 235 and U 238.

Atoms of an element that have the same atomic number, but have different weights, are called isotopes.

U-235 is believed to be used to make weapons or to produce energy.

But the quantity of U-238 in ore is high. For this reason, special centrifuges are required to separate U-235.

It is believed that the existence of Iran’s Natanz nuclear center was revealed only in 2002 but Iran accepted its existence in 2003.

Why work suddenly stopped in Natanz

Natanz is Iran’s largest gas centrifuge uranium enrichment center where work began since 2007.

Iran had to slow down its work at this center when several centrifuges started to worsen continuously. Iran also had to temporarily stop work at this center.

According to ‘Iran’s Nuclear Odyssey: Cost and Risk’ , in 2010, a computer virus named Stuxnet attacked the Natanz center and due to this, about 20% of the centrifuges were completely damaged.

In a way, this virus pushed Iran’s nuclear program back a few years.

Scientists were also murdered
The Stuxnet virus was considered the world’s first cyberweapon. Before being transported to Natanz, the virus was inserted into about five such computers that were connected to Natanz but were not within it.

A report published in 2012 quoted US Intelligence Department officials as saying that an American working for Israel called himself an Iranian and successfully tried to inject viruses into computers connected to centrifuges at the center. This work was done through a pen drive containing a virus.

According to the report, scientists associated with the Iran nuclear program were also killed so that Iran’s nuclear wishes could be curbed.

For the first fifteen minutes, this virus used to make the centrifuge run much faster than the prescribed limit, after which it then ran the centrifuge at normal speed. After about a month, it reduced the speed of centrifuges significantly. As a result, the parts of the centrifuge were spoiled due to this.

Although no firm evidence was found of this, many people said that America and Israel were behind this step. According to an NPR report, the virus was created by Israel in 2009 with the help of the CIA.

According to a New York Times report, Stuxnet was tested in Israel to stop Iran’s ability to make bombs.

According to recent news, an intelligence officer from the Netherlands also allegedly played an important role in it.

This virus alone destroyed about a thousand centrifuges in Natanz.

Work started again in Natanz
After this setback, Iran once again started the work of making new modern centrifuges in Natanz. In June last year, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said that Natanz was being prepared for this.

For this, Iran started efforts from 2011 itself. He started making carbon fiber in the rotor required for centrifugation within the country.

At that time it was not of good quality and it was believed that Iran would have to depend on others for this. But soon Iran also started mass production (60 rotors a day).

In June 2018, three types of centrifuges made in the country were also shown in a television program, after which it became clear that it would no longer depend on others.

After this, there was speculation that Iran would try to make its own centrifuge and would not directly take the help of any country.

In January this year, Ali Akbar Salehi said that Iran is developing its own nuclear technology. He used to say, “We do the mining of uranium ourselves, making our own centrifuges and this time we are doing it correctly.” Now President Rouhani has said that Iran will ‘create new centrifuges to increase uranium enrichment’.

It is now clear from his statement that Iran no longer wants to take any other risk regarding its nuclear program and wants to move forward on its own faith.