IAEA examining challenges ahead

It is becoming popular to convene high-level panels to attempt to foresee the future. Personally, I am deeply sceptical to talking shops. Many have convened in the history of mankind, and most have been sentenced to oblivion. Generally, inclusive conferences tend to leave a mark on the future direction of a country. Conclaves are only successful when they bring key decision makers or people with money to the table. In the shadow of the big disarmament conclave held in Oslo, the IAEA's own clairvoyants, the Commission of Eminent Persons have met to chart the future course of the Agency. This Commission draws on a large number of persons from developing as well as developed nations, and even includes the nuclear industry (through, for instance, Anne Lauvergeon). Even civil society groups, through the massively impressive International Crisis Group in Brussels, have been invited to participate.

The commission "will make recommendations on ways in which the Agency can prepare to meet its expanding workload". I have one right here, guys: start convincing your clients (the nation states) that you're worth every penny and then some. Life in general becomes much simpler if one thinks in terms of earning more, rather then spending less.

Anyway, these are the 18 wise men and women who are going to steer the agency into a bright and fusion-powered future:

• Dr. Ernesto Zedillo (Chairman) - Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; former President of Mexico;
• Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji - former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nigeria; former Member of the Board of Governors of the IAEA;
• Lakhdar Brahimi - Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey; former UN Under-Secretary-General, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, and Chair of the Panel on UN Peace Operations;
• Lajos Bokros - Professor of Economics and Public Policy, and Chief Operating Officer of the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary;
• Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram - Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India; DAE Homi Bhabha Professor; former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission; former Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre;
• Senator Lamberto Dini - President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Senate;
• Gareth Evans - President and Chief Executive Officer, International Crisis Group, Brussels; former Australian Foreign Minister 1988-1998; former Minister for Resources and Energy 1984-1987;
• Louise Fréchette - Distinguished Fellow, The Centre for International Governance Innovation; former Canadian Deputy Minister; former UN Deputy Secretary-General;
• Anne Lauvergeon - Chief Executive Officer of AREVA Group;
• Kishore Mahbubani - Dean, Professor in the Practice of Public Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; former Ambassador to the UN; former President of the UN Security Council;
• Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg - President of the National Telecommunication Agency of Brazil (ANATEL); former Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN; former Minister of Science and Technology;
• Ambassador Pius Yasebasi Ng´Wandu - former Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and Minister of Water, United Republic of Tanzania;
• Senator Sam Nunn - Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; former United States Senator;
• Ambassador Karl Theodor Paschke - former UN Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services 1994-1999; former Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the IAEA 1984-1986;
• Dr. Wolfgang Schüssel - former Federal Chancellor of Austria; Leader of the Parliamentary Group of the Austrian People´s Party;
• Academician Evgeny Velikhov - President of the Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute; Academician and Secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
• Professor Wang Dazhong - Honorary Chairman of Tsinghua University Council; Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; former President of Tsinghua University; Director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University; Vice-Chairman, Standing Committee of Beijing People's Congress;
• Dr. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa - President of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokyo; former President of the University of Tokyo

CTBTO flush with cash... (not really)

The CTBTO has finally received a large, and desperately needed, chunk of money. This copied from their latest press release:

On 25 February 2008, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) received a large financial contribution – US$ 23.8 million – from the United States.

-"This is a very welcome development", CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Tóth said in a comment. "The United States is a major contributor to this organization. We are dependent on their funds to build up the verification regime. 35 additional stations need to be built this year – many in parts of the world where stations are yet to be built - and the 250 stations already built need to be operated and maintained. We also need to continue building up the noble gas technology. Data from this technology were crucial in the context of the declared nuclear explosion in the DPRK in October 2006."

The CTBTO is funded through scaled annual dues, in accordance with the United Nations system of payment. The CTBTO budget is a split US$ and Euro budget, and amounts to US$ 56.58 million plus Euro 43.57 million for the year 2008. The US share of this budget is 22.3 % in each currency.

"- It is very welcome that in 2008 already and compared to the same time last year the overall payment from Member States has more than doubled," Tóth said.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty bans all nuclear explosions on Earth.

A verification regime is being built to monitor compliance with the Treaty. Upon completion, 321 stations world wide will monitor the underground, the oceans and the atmosphere for any sign of a nuclear explosion.

VERTIC has been invited by the CTBTO to participate in its Integrated Field Exercise 2008 as an observer. Hopefully, the first full scale test of the on-site inspection regime will be carried out against an optimistic backdrop. Well done Tibor (and crew), and enjoy Oslo.

IAEA reports on Iran

The latest IAEA report on Iran was published on last Friday, 22 February 2008, after a week of intense speculation. The initial analysis ranges from being pessimistic, to being balanced, to being carefully optimistic. While most analysts seem to think that more work is needed to give Iran the clean bill of health it so desperately seeks, all seem to believe that the present report is a step in the right direction. I promoted to this latter view on Friday night, appearing on IRIB television just after Saeed Jalili's press conference. As far as Iranian television is concerned, this is about as prime time as it gets, and I do hope someone in Tehran listened.

The discussion at the show focussed not so much on Iran's achievements so far in cooperating with the IAEA, but what can be done in the coming weeks and months. I highlighted developments such as that described in paragraph 55 of the report (that Iran has started to increase the information flow) and called for more cooperation in finishing off the last sets of questions. Refreshingly, the entire studio seemed to be in agreement that increased transparency is for the better. At the end of the day, however, the Iranian government would need to sit down with its partners (primarily the EU) without preconditions, in order to iron out a political deal. This report could perhaps act as a catalyst for such talks.

Some observers have devoted considerable attention to the content of the laptop, and Jeffrey Lewis points out some intriguing connections, such as that the date of the destruction of Lavizan-Shian (2003) coincides with the time when the US intelligence community says Iran's weapons programme stopped. As Lewis put it, 'nothing says HALT! like a giant bulldozer'. However, investigating the US claims will be very difficult, especially so if some information turns out to be correct, while some information cannot be verified. If some information is fabricated, as Iran claims, they will be asked to prove a negative.

Highlighting the benefits of transparency and verification is a good thing. But one should not have blind faith in it. Safeguards are just a burglar alarm, they can tell you (to some degree of confidence) whether a state is engaged in non-compliant behaviour, but it's not going to solve any underlying problems. They will tell you that the gun cabinet is locked, but it won't remove the key from the cabinet's owner, or the guns from inside. With the publication of this report, we are starting to see the end of the verification process. Now, it is important to plan for the next steps.

Our environment

I am still trying to get Larry Macfaul to write for the blog, but he is difficult to convince, which is a shame. In 1995-96, I was asked to work at Orebro University as a research assistant to one of the economists there. I suppose that my supervisor liked the fact that I challenged all seven or eight assumptions that underpin economic theory during my first week at university. Economics is also very relevant for the way we choose to tackle climate change. While Larry makes up his mind, I'd like to share all episodes of the award-winning documentary, "the planet". Each episode is about 40 minutes, but well worth the time.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Death of a satellite

The US Navy finally shot down USA 193 with its SM-3 interceptor, read Pavel Podvig's initial analysis here.

I am very much looking forward to the continuing technical coverage on Russian Forces and the ACW.

Also check out Sean O'Connor's groundbreaking analysis of Iran's brand new missile silos. According to Mr. O'Connor:

Situated approximately 10 kilometers southwest of Tabriz, Iran, is a missile facility unique outside of the world's nuclear powers. For the first time, such a nation has chosen to operationally deploy ballistic missiles inside of silos. Granted, some non-nuclear nations deploy silo-based missiles, but these are all defensive weapon systems. The Tabriz facility represents the first silo-based deployment of offensive weapons outside of the world's nuclear powers

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Iran’s new toy (continued)

For some time, I've had suspicions about the origin of Iran's new centrifuge toy. Recently, I blessed to have a short conversation with one of few centrifuge experts with access to data on Iran's new centrifuge. The expert confirmed that the design was essentially an Iranian invention, and that it was based on a low-tech and simple Zippe design. I mused that the centrifuge could have been developed with the assistance of Russian expertise. My contact could confirm that there was some Russian involvement in Iran's nuclear program, but did not think that it was centrifuge related. Instead, this machine is a product of Iranian entrepreneurialism. The country's young scientific and engineering cadre are apparently extremely enthusiastic about their work. They believe that their work is important for the country, and are very proud of their past achievements. Indeed, several centrifuge parts are laid out on display inside their Natanz facility, for all visitors to see. There is plenty of funding and political cover, and the atmosphere is reminiscent of adventurism, curiosity and optimism of early URENCO days.

Table 1: Specifications of Iraq's subcritical centrifuges

	Zippe Centrifuge Rotor	Iraq's Zippe Centrifuge Rotor	Iran's Zippe Centrifuge Rotor
Length	330 mm	< 600 mm	ca. 500 mm
Inside diameter	74 mm	N/A	ca. 110 mm
Outside diameter	76 mm	N/A	ca. 115 mm
Wall thickness	1 mm	N/A	N/A
Material	2000 series aluminium with T-6 hardening	Maraging steel and carbon fibre	Carbon fibre

So what about the Zippe? The light and small Zippe centrifuge was developed in the 1950s, and became the mainstay of the Soviet centrifuge effort. Its light weight and simple design meant that its suspension systems could be small, and that it could be run very efficiently in terms of power consumption. According to USEC, the first Zippe centrifuge brought into operation by the US produced 0.45 kg SWU per year on less than 10 watts (you could run about 25 centrifuges on the same power as you would run a coffee maker if this figure is correct). This is a low tech design, and to put things in perspective, you would 'only' need about 11,000 of them to produce 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in a year.

About ten years of subsequent research and development by Union Carbide and the Garrett Cooperations resulted in a hundredfold increase in the effectiveness of the individual centrifuge. In other words, the potential of the Zippe type centrifuge should not be underestimated. However, there are several problems associated with the Zippe-type machine, and that's why URENCO went super-critical. Typically, SWU capacity is lower (the longer you can make the centrifuge, the better its separative capacity), which means that the operator would need to create larger cascades. Reportedly, maintaining a plant with tens of thousands of centrifuges 'with first generation machines would be extremely difficult. Additionally, ... the Zippe centrifuge have extremely low stage separation efficiencies that would lead to a very large number of centrifuge stages with a corresponding increase in cascade piping and complexity'. But the Iranians are likely to encounter several problems with their new toy. The Iraqis reportedly did. They had planned to establish a manufacturing plant capable of producing 4,000 centrifuges a year 'to account for an anticipated high reject rate in centrifuge components'.

An Iranian facility comprising several thousands of subcritical machines, with its complicated piping arrangements, is likely to make the present safeguards approach unsuitable.

Hopefully, there will be more information in the next IAEA report, to be published some time this week. I have a lot of questions. Did Pakistan explore Zippe-type centrifuges? What challenges are Iran likely to encounter with its particular design? What's the theoretical SWU maximum for a carbon fibre machine that size? How easy or difficult would it be to manufacture it? What kind of industrial capacity would you need to set up a production line? How much power would you need, and how would you transport it to the plant? It will indeed be interesting to see where this goes...

Iran’s IR-2 centrifuge

According to a paper by David Albright's ISIS, Iran's new centrifuge is about 50 centimetres long, made out of carbon fibre, and without bellows. He writes that the Iranians have modified the imported Pakistani P-2 design. To me, it sounds like Iran has opted for a subcritical Zippe-type centrifuge.

According to an old paper by Albright, Iraq also went down the subcritical route. Its first machine, completed by the end of 1987, was a dismal failure. It had problems with excess vibration, inadequate seals, and it consumed excessive amounts of power. Then in 1988 (the year of Pan Am Flight 103 and the Armenian earthquake), the Iraqi's got hold of Bruno Stemmler, a German engineer for hire, who supplied them with drawings of a subcritical centrifuge developed by a German company, presumably for URENCO. The Iraqis quickly opted for a carbon fibre sub-critical centrifuge. The reason why one would want a shorter centrifuge is that it won't go through what's known as a flexural resonance. When the rotor passes through one of these resonances, it starts to vibrate, and unless the rotor is carefully balanced and vibrations controlled by some sort of dampener (such as bellows), the rotor could be torn apart. Chunks of metal would then be flying around the laboratory at very high speeds. The critical speed is determined by the design of the rotor and the density and elasticity of the materials it is made of. Anyone interested about the mechanics of uranium enrichment should have a read of Allan Krass's book "Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation" available for free at SIPRI's website. Everything is explained in more detail there, and the mathematically gifted can even use the formulas provided to make their own calculations on various designs.

The Iraqis managed to design and run a machine in less than two years. At the end of 1990, the Iraqi test machine reached 1.9 SWU per year. IAEA inspectors later believed that its design could have reached higher outputs if optimised (as high as 2.7), but the Iraqis wasn't interested in that. Now, why would they be? The entire point with building small and fast is that one can stock up the centrifuge hall with lots of busy little bees. They are easier to build and easier to operate. They are less efficient, but who cares about that if one doesn't care about commercial competiveness?

Iran may not be interested in building a machine that performs per theoretical maximum. They might be interested, like the Iraqis, in a subcritical carbon machine spinning at 400 m/s, which would give it about 2 SWU per unit and year. But why would they change direction of the programme now, after such heavy investment in P-1 technology? To me, that makes little managerial sense.

A welcome to Paul (and a name change)

Paul Ingram, the co-executive director of the British-American Security Information Council (or BASIC), as agreed to join me here. Paul should be known to some of my readers (those in the UK) due to his tireless contribution to the UK community over the last twenty years. I hope that Paul will be able to bring the bigger picture to my pet project. Those of you that attended the Wilton Park conference on nuclear non-proliferation last December will remember his dazzling summaries of the group discussions he participated in (a complete mind-mapping exercise). Paul is not only an executive director, he is also a TV-star in Iran (of all places), where he hosts a weekly peak-time talk show on IRINN, focussing on global security issues. I am sure that he will bring suitably provocative thoughts to this small community.

The name has changed as well. Nothing major, just to reflect more what I am working with on a daily basis. VERTIC has two major projects running at the moment: one on the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement (funded by the UK MOD and Norway) and the second on national implementation of international agreements (funded by the UK FCO and the Dutch Government). I was hoping to be able, my boss permitting, to share some of the conclusions and developments in that field on this blog as well. Properly vetted, obviously...

Compliance? Well, our environmental researcher, Larry Macfaul, is focussing heavily on compliance issues nowadays. I am lobbying him so that he can share the developments in the environment field with us, but he's a very difficult man to entice. Personally, I am intrigued by, and deeply sceptical to, the compliance debate that's been raging in the arms control community over the last five or six years. I would be eager to learn more about the debate in the environment field, so I'll continue my campaign to sign up Larry as well.

Developments in Iran

This is neither arms control nor verification, but this brief note caught my eye. The disqualification of some 2,400 reformist candidates for Iran's 14 March 2008 parliamentary election is an interesting signal of times to come, and a strong indication of the continued weak state of the reformist movement. In Iranian politics, no-one seems to be above scrutiny, as the following article shows:

Iran bars Khomeini's grandson from election

TEHRAN - An Iranian hardline watchdog body has banned a grandson of the country's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from running for parliament next month, a newspaper reported yesterday.

The March 14 vote for parliament, now dominated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's backers, will test the popularity of the hardline president who came to power vowing to share out oil wealth more fairly but failed to curb inflation.

Hopefuls have to go through a vetting process by government executive committees and the conservative-controlled Guardian Council, which has stopped hundreds of reformist candidates in the past.

Among many hopefuls barred from running in the election is Ali Eshraghi, a 39-year-old civil engineer who is also a grandson of Khomeini, founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Eshraghi told the Kargozaran newspaper he had not been told why he was rejected.

"My neighbours told me they were questioned about my private life, including ... whether I shaved, whether I pray or fast or smoke," Eshraghi said.

Reformists were defeated in the 2004 parliamentary vote, when another grandchild of Khomeini, Zahra Eshraghi, was barred.

That election helped pave the way for Ahmadinejad's presidential win in the 2005 race.

Pro-reform politicians say many of their number, including 30 lawmakers and three former ministers, have already been banned from running this time around.

The final list of approved candidates will be announced on March 5.

The hardline-run council can reinstate hopefuls or bar others based on criteria such as loyalty to the Islamic system.

I wonder what grandpa would say.

UK MOD discusses nuclear disarmament

The political climate for serious technical discussions on nuclear disarmament is becoming very bright and sunny here in the United Kingdom, with more actors getting involved in the grand disarmament laboratory announced some six months ago. Yesterday, UK minister of defence Des Browne gave a talk entitled 'Laying the Foundations for Multilateral Disarmament' to the Conference on Disarmament. He applauded the Norwegian dialogue (but didn't mention VERTIC's humble contribution to world peace), and raised a couple of extremely interesting ideas, including that of a P-5 technical conference on how to verify nuclear disarmament.

Excerpt of the speech follows:

Just as Margaret Beckett said last year, I too want the UK to be seen as a 'disarmament laboratory'. By that I mean the UK becoming a role model and testing ground for measures that we and others can take on key aspects of disarmament. In particular, measures needed to determine the requirements for the verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. Any verification regime will have to be robust, effective and mutually trusted and, crucially, one that doesn't give away national security or proliferation-sensitive information.

The more reductions states make, the more confidence they will require that no one is cheating and secretly retaining a "marginal nuclear weapon". It is therefore of paramount importance that verification techniques are developed which enable us all – Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States – to have confidence that when a state says it has fully and irrevocably dismantled a nuclear warhead, we all can be assured it is telling the truth.

The UK is ready to lead the way on this. Research into how one technically verifies the dismantlement of a warhead continues at the UK's Atomic Weapons stablishment at Aldermaston.

Developing such techniques will take time but it is very important it is not undertaken in 'splendid isolation'. It must be built on the requirements of Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Weapon States alike. We need to consider not only what information we are willing to divulge but also what information a Non-Nuclear Weapon State will want to receive.

With this in mind, over the last year AWE has developed a technical cooperation initiative with several Norwegian defence laboratories. The process of engaging with Norway must avoid breaching our mutual NPT obligations, which in itself serves as useful insight into how future multilateral discussions might proceed.

The difficulty is in developing technologies which strike the right balance between protecting security and proliferation considerations and, at the same time, providing sufficient international access and verification. But this is a challenge we can overcome.

If we are serious about doing our bit to create the conditions for complete nuclear disarmament, we must now also begin to build deeper technical relationships on disarmament between nuclear weapon states.

So I come to this Conference with a proposal.

As a next step, and following on from the AWE research, the UK is willing to host a technical conference of P5 nuclear laboratories on the verification of nuclear disarmament before the next NPT Review Conference in 2010. We hope such a conference will enable the five recognised nuclear weapons states to reinforce a process of mutual confidence building: working together to solve some of these difficult technical issues.

The speech is mind-bogglingly good. Read it. Also, have a read of a paper I wrote for a Norwegian institute in 2006. Actually, there are quite a bit of obstacles down the road. But we're off to a great start, at least here in the United Kingdom.

Finally: yesterday, the talk was stored at the MOD server at an address which ended:
"5layingTheFoundationsForMulticulturalDisarmament.htm". Quite funny. It's been fixed now.

Striking Syria

For more than a month, rumours have been circulating that Seymour Hersh is about to publish an article on the 5 September 2007 Israeli strike on a suspect facility in Syria. It is now available at the paper's website. I wrote about it on 30 October 2007 (available here). I was also honoured to be quoted in Nuclear Fuels, voicing my suspicions about the site. Suspicions shared by legendary nuclear journalist Mark Hibbs.

Hersh doesn't know what the site was, but seems to dismiss that it was nuclear. Instead, his sources in Syria rather talks about a Chemical Weapons Warfare facility or a missile site. Both sources confirm the presence of North Koreans at the site. None of his sources seems to have a good idea as to why the IAEA hasn't visited yet.

It's an intriguing read...