Iran set for own reactor fuel

Iran is taking preliminary steps to design uranium fuel with a purity of 20% for reactors instead of having to copy foreign designs, its nuclear chief says.

Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers caps the level to which it is able to enrich uranium to 3.67% purity, well below the 20% it was reaching before the deal, and the roughly 90% that is weapons-grade.

Iran is, however, allowed to produce nuclear fuel under strict conditions that need to be approved by a working group set up by the signatories to the deal. Those conditions include ensuring that the fuel cannot be converted to uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium.

“We have made such progress in nuclear science and industry that, instead of reverseengineering and the use of designs by others, we can design new fuel ourselves,” state broadcaster IRIB quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.

“Initial measures have been started for the design of modern 20% fuel and we’re on the verge of [achieving] it. This product is different from the previous 20% fuel, and we can supply fuel to any reactor that is built like the Tehran reactor,” Salehi said. That “reactor has been working with old fuel, but modern fuel can improve efficiency”.