Fuel loading completed at Bushehr

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/IT-Fuel_loading_completed_at_Bushehr-2611106.html

The reactor head of the first reactor at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant was successfully installed on 23 November, according to Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). This marks the completion of fuel loading, according to a report by the Iranian Students News Agency. Fuel loading activities began on 26 October. Previous reports have indicated that the unit will be grid connected in February 2011. The completion of fuel loading comes alongside continuing concern from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran's enrichment activities. An IAEA report dated 23 November concluded, "While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities." The report also noted that there was a six-day suspension of uranium enrichment at Iran's Natanz plant, which started on 16 November. Some media sources have linked this to the Stuxnet virus attack, but Iran has officially denied that the virus caused any damage.

Iran has 30 kg of high level uranium: atomic chief

ran said on Wednesday it has produced around 30 kilogrammes of 20 percent-enriched uranium, in defiance of UN sanctions imposed on Tehran to suspend the contentious nuclear work. "We have produced nearly 30 kilogrammes (66 pounds) of 20 percent enriched uranium so far," Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
World powers led by Washington want Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activity, which is at the centre of fears that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons.
Enriched uranium can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors as well as to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.
World powers backed new UN sanctions against Iran on June 9 after they were infuriated by Tehran's decision to enrich uranium to 20 percent, which theoretically brings it closer to the 90 percent purity used to make a nuclear weapon. Iran denies its atomic programme is aimed at making weapons.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered Iran's atomic body in February to start refining uranium to 20 percent after a nuclear fuel swap deal drafted by the UN atomic watchdog and aimed at providing fuel for a Tehran research reactor hit a deadlock.
Iran claims that by September 2011 it will domestically produce the required fuel and the actual fuel plates to power the reactor.
Western powers say that the Islamic republic does not possess the technology to make the plates.
Meanwhile, Iran and the group of six world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- are to hold talks on Tehran's overall nuclear programme in mid-November.

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