Friday, August 13, 2010

Iran Set to Open a New Target

No, not a store. According to Russia, Iran is set to start-up its first nuclear power plant next week.

Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said Friday that uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21, beginning the startup process. ...“From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation,”
The plant is painted with a gigantic bullseye that can be seen from the air. Not really, but it might as well have one. I'm not in favor of strike on Iran, but if there is one, I expect this facility to become a smoking pile of radioactive rubble.

It would be interesting if Iran's brand-new first nuclear plant were to suffer a mysterious, catastrophic accident, perhaps a massive internal explosion, or some sort of cooling system failure that led to a meltdown. Aside from destroying the plant, such an accident would probably kill scientists, engineers and technicians important to Iran's nuclear program. It might even be blamed on shoddy Russian engineering, poor workmanship or the use of cut-rate materials in construction, damaging the close relationship between Russia & Iran on nuclear projects -- especially if the cause of the accident is difficult to determine.

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