WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- An arms control advocacy group calculates it will take Iran nearly three years to enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear warhead.
The Federation of American Scientists posted a "Uranium Centrifuge Calculator" in the wake of Iran's announcement it had begun to enrich uranium, despite pressure from the U.N. Security Council and the United States.
Iran says the uranium is for use in civilian nuclear power plants not for weapons.
The FAS calculator is meant to dampen the sense of urgency -- and the possible consequent calls for military action -- surrounding Iran's provocative move.
FAS asserts a nuclear weapon requires 50 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium, 90 percent U235 isotope, if a country already has an enrichment cascade and consistently add centrifuges to the cascade.
Gas centrifuge are used to whirl natural uranium - which contains both U235 and the non-fissionable U238 -- in a gas chamber. Centrifugal force separates the isotopes and pushes the heavier U235 molecules to the outside where they can be harvested, according to FAS. But many stages are needed to produce the highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.
"In regards to recent events, the user may wish to choose 165 centrifuges as this is the number that Iran claims to have operating in its present enrichment program at the Natanz facility," states FAS. "It will take approximately 1,079 days (2.96 years) to obtain 50 kilograms of highly-enriched Uranium (90 percent U235)."
FAS says the calculation assumes the most efficient use of centrifuges, and assumes no problems or delays in production.
"There are issues with switching the pipes and filling new centrifuges that would further increase the time it would take to integrate and operate new centrifuges. Consequently, this calculation provides a low bound for the time required to enrich 50kg of Uranium to weapons-grade," FAS concludes.
