Iran's first nuclear fuel rod and what it means

In the past few days, at a time of high tension in the Gulf, Iran announced that it had produced and tested its first fuel rod at the Tehran Research Reactor. It also claimed to have mastered the production of nuclear plates. My understanding is that what is being tested at the TRR is a rod designed to be used at the heavy water reactor under construction in Arak. Making assemblies of plates of the kind required to fuel the TRR itself is still some way off. Iran has always stated that the TRR is being used to produce radioisotopes through irradiation for industrial and medical purposes. To operate, the reactor needs a core made of fuel assemblies, which contain a total of 30 kg uranium enriched to 20 % U-235. Each fuel assembly is made of thin plates, which contain uranium in form of U3O8 (uranium oxide) in aluminium cladding. It appears from the announcement that what Iran has produced and tested at the hot cells at the TRR is something different: a fuel rod, which typically consists of cylindrical pellets clad in a zirconium tube. The rod Iran claims to have made contains natural uranium, suggesting that it is intended for the IR-40 heavy water reactor at Arak, rather than for a light water nuclear power station like Bushehr, which uses rods of low enriched U-235. This is a cause for concern as such an action is proscribed by the United Nations Security Council due to its proliferation concerns. Plutonium could be separated from the reactor's spent fuel. Hence this show of ostensibly civilian nuclear progress could end up further stoking international tensions.

Olli Heinonen, a former IAEA deputy director general and head of the safeguards department. Olli Heinonen is now a senior fellow at the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University

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