Iran Reportedly Tripling Number of Nuclear Centrifuges

Iran currently has 3,000 centrifuges up and running, but now claims that they're going to install 6,000 more centrifuges. There's no word on whether the Iranians will use the P-1/IR-1 or the P-2/IR-2 centrifuges. The P-2/IR-2 centrifuges are more advanced and more efficient in their capability to enrich uranium.

The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Iranian state television didn't say if the installation of the 6,000 new centrifuges included the older P-1 or the advanced IR-2 centrifuges.

A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that ultimately will involve 54,000 centrifuges.

Iran is clearly intent upon building the infrastructure necessary to enrich significant quantities of uranium - and the secretive nature of its program continues to suggest with high probability that the Iranians are intent on using the enriched uranium for a weapons program.