Iran Promises 50,000 Centrifuges In Five Years

Just remember that the NIE claims Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program. Iran doesn't need the centrifuges to enrich uranium because it has deals with Russia that would enable them to buy the enriched uranium for their nuclear reactor to provide electricity.

Iran needs to install 50,000 centrifuges within five years so it can make enough fuel for one nuclear power plant, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday.

Iran's uranium enrichment plans are the part of Tehran's nuclear program that most worries the West because the process can be used to make both fuel for nuclear power plants or, if desired, material for warheads.

Ahmadinejad told a news conference 50,000 centrifuges -- roughly the figure Iran has stated is its goal -- were enough to make fuel for one plant in a year.

"We have to install centrifuges with the same speed (as building nuclear power plants) so that in five years we would be able to produce fuel for one nuclear power plant," he said. He mentioned "four or five years" elsewhere in his remarks.

Building 50,000 centrifuge cascades is significant for Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities. It would enable the Iranians to enrich uranium to weapons grade and produce significant quantities of weapons grade materials within short order.

The same process that enables uranium to be enriched for power production is the same one that enables uranium to be turned into bombmaking materials. The key difference is the length of time to which the key uranium isotope is enriched and purified.