Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant

Template:Infobox Nuclear power plant The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (Persian: نیروگاه اتمی بوشهر) is a nuclear power plant in Iran which is under construction 17 kilometres (11 mi) south-east of the city of Bushehr, between the fishing villages of Halileh and Bandargeh along the Persian Gulf. An official launch ceremony was held on 21 August 2010, and the plant is expected to go on network in the next months. The project is considered unique in terms of its technology, the political environment and the challenging physical climate.

History

Inception

The facility was the idea of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who envisioned a time when the world's oil supply would run out. He wanted a national electrical grid powered by clean nuclear power plants. Bushehr would be the first plant, and would supply energy to the inland city of Shiraz. In August 1974, the Shah said, "Petroleum is a noble material, much too valuable to burn... We envision producing, as soon as possible, 23,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity using nuclear plants".

Construction by German companies

In 1975, German Kraftwerk Union AG, a joint venture of Siemens AG and AEG Telefunken, signed a contract worth US$4–6 billion to build the pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant. The the work was begun in the same year. The two 1,196 MWe reactors, subcontracted to ThyssenKrupp AG, were based on the Convoy design and identical with the two reactors from the German Biblis Nuclear Power Plant. The first reactor was to be finished by 1980 and the second one by 1981.

Kraftwerk Union was eager to work with the Iranian government because, as spokesman Joachim Hospe said in 1976, "To fully exploit our nuclear power plant capacity, we have to land at least three contracts a year for delivery abroad. The market here is about saturated, and the United States has cornered most of the rest of Europe, so we have to concentrate on the third world."

Kraftwerk Union fully withdrew from the Bushehr nuclear project in July 1979, after work stopped in January 1979, with one reactor 50% complete, and the other reactor 85% complete. They said they based their action on Iran's non-payment of $450 million in overdue payments. The company had received $2.5 billion of the total contract. Their cancellation came after certainty that the Iranian government would unilaterally terminate the contract themselves, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which led to a crisis in Iran's relations with the West.

In 1984, Kraftwerk Union did a preliminary assessment to see if it could resume work on the project, but declined to do so while the Iran-Iraq war continued. In April of that year, the U.S. State Department said, "We believe it would take at least two to three years to complete construction of the reactors at Bushehr." The spokesperson also said that the light water power reactors at Bushehr "are not particularly well-suited for a weapons program." The spokesman went on to say, "In addition, we have no evidence of Iranian construction of other facilities that would be necessary to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel." The reactors were then damaged by multiple Iraqi air strikes from 1984 to 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war. Shortly afterwards Iraq invaded Iran and the nuclear program was stopped until the end of the war.

Continuation of work by Russia's Atomstroiexport

In 1990, Iran began to look outwards towards partners for its nuclear program; however, due to a radically different political climate and punitive U.S. economic sanctions, few candidates existed.

A Russian-Iranian intergovernmental agreement on building a nuclear power plant in Iran was signed on 25 August, 1992. Two years later, Russian specialists toured the site for the first time to assess the damage done to the partially-complete plant by the passage of time and by air raids during the Iran-Iraq war. The final contract between Iran and Russia's Ministry for Atomic Energy (Minatom) was signed on 8 January 1995. According to it, Russia's main contractor for the project, Atomstroiexport, would install a 915 MWe VVER-1000 pressurized water reactor into the existing Bushehr I building, with completion expected in 2007.

Difficulties

The Bushehr Nuclear Plant project is considered unique in terms of technology, the political environment and the challenging physical climate. Financial problems, inflation, and the need to integrate German and Russian technology have made the project difficult for the participants.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian government ended its subsidies to contractors building power plants for foreign customers, putting Atomstroyexport in financial difficulties. Another obstacle was the shortage of Russian engineers and technicians with suitable experience. The last nuclear plant built in the Soviet Union was the No. 6 reactor at Zaporizhzhya in Ukraine, which is why Ukrainian specialists were invited to work in Iran after they had finished the work at Zaporizhzhya.

The 1995 contract with Iran stipulated that a share of construction and installation jobs would be reserved for Iranian subcontractors. These companies were inexperienced and had been only minimally involved in the German project, which resulted in their 12-month work being delayed over 3-years (1995-1997). Due to these difficulties, in 1998 Minatom pushed through an agreement that Atomstroyexport would finish the first reactor on its own. The agreement was signed on 29 August 1998 as an addendum to the main contract.

The extremely hot and humid climate of the Bushehr area, with lots of brine in the air due to the proximity of the ocean, represented a special challenge for the construction. In such conditions, even stainless steel can rust, and a special painting technology had to be developed to protect the station's structural elements. In the summer the temperatures can reach 50 °C (122 °F). While the German companies worked at the site, the workers had a special clause in their contracts to allow them to stop working during the summer heat waves.

German engineers had left behind a total of 80,000 pieces of equipment and structural elements, with little technical documentation. The Iranian side insisted that the German hardware must be integrated in the Russian VVER-1000 design. Germany refused to help in the construction, mostly for political reasons, as Iran was under an embargo for nuclear plant components. Therefore, it was decided to take stock of the existing equipment using only Russian expertise.

The 1998 addendum to the construction contract put the final value of the project at just over $1 billion. Since then, the sum was never adjusted for inflation, resulting in funding shortages.

Revised contract

In response to American and European pressure on Russia, a new revised agreement was reached in September 2006, under which fuel deliveries to Bushehr were scheduled to start in March 2007 and the plant was due to come on stream in September 2007 after years of delays. In February 2007, the work on the site started to grind to a halt due to funding shortages, and Atomstroyexport reduced the number of employees working on the site from 3,000 to just 800. During subsequent negotiations, Atomstroyexport even contemplated pulling out of the project. In the end, an agreement was reached, under which the Iranians would compensate for the growing cost of equipment and engineering works once the reactor would go live. A top Iranian nuclear official claimed that the Russians were deliberately delaying and politicising the project under European and American pressure.

According to Moscow Defense Brief, until 2005 Washington exerted considerable diplomatic pressure on Russia to stop the project, as the US administrations viewed it as evidence of Russia's indirect support for the alleged Iranian nuclear arms program. The United States also tried to get other countries to ban their companies from taking part. For example, Ukraine's Turboatom was to supply a turbine, but cancelled the deal after the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to Kiev on 6 March 1998. The United States lifted its opposition to the project in 2005, partly due to the deal signed by Moscow and Tehran, under which spent fuel from the plant would be sent back to Russia.

Finishing the plant

In 2007, according to Moscow Defense Brief, Russia made a strategic decision to finish the plant, and in December 2007 started to deliver nuclear fuel to the site. On January 20, 2008 a fourth Russian shipment of nuclear fuel arrived. Russia has pledged to sell 85-tons of nuclear fuel to the plant.

In March, 2009, the head of Russia's state nuclear power corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, announced that Russia had completed the construction of the plant. A series of pre-launch tests were conducted after the announcement. Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah has said that the Bushehr plant would begin producing 500 MW of its 1,000 MW capacity of electricity by 22 August 2009, and would be brought up to full capacity by the end of March 2010.

In September 22, 2009 it was reported that the first reactor was 96% complete and final testing would begin in the near future. In early October final testing was started. In January 2010, Kiriyenko announced to the public that the Bushehr reactor would be opening in the near-future, declaring 2010 the "year of Bushehr."

On 13 August 2010, Russia announced that fuel would be loaded into the plant beginning on 21 August, which would mark the beginning of the plant being considered a nuclear facility. Within six months after the fuel loading, the plant is planned to be fully operational.

A further two reactors of the same type are planned. The fourth unit was canceled.

August 2010 launch

An official launch seremony was held on 21 August 2010 as Iran began loading the plant with fuel. At the ceremony, Iranian nuclear chief Alki Akbar Salahei said:

"Despite all pressure, sanctions and hardships imposed by western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities."

The plant was expected to start producing electricity in about a month. Although they have opposed the project in the past, Western governments now stress that they have no objection to the demonstrably peaceful aspects of Iran's nuclear programme such as Bushehr, according to the BBC.

The plant will be operated by Russian specialists. Russia also provides the nuclear fuel for the plant, and spent fuel is sent back to Russia.

Implications

The total cost of the project is estimated to be over €3 billion. The original 1995 contract with the 1998 addendum was worth $1 billion and was not adjusted for inflation. Although in 2007 Iran agreed to compensate for the rising costs, it is regarded that the possibility of the project turning a profit are remote. However, the project allowed the nuclear industry of Russia to preserve its expertise in times when funding was scarce, and until the sector started to receive orders from China and India.

According to Moscow Defense Brief, completion of the plant could become an indicator of Russia's credibility in large international high technology projects, and the successful integration of German and Russian technology could help the Russian nuclear industry in its ambitions to partner with foreign companies in building nuclear power plants in Russia and abroad.

Since Bushehr's nuclear reactor has been under construction by different firms and consultants, the constituent parts have also different origins. 24% of the parts are German in origin, 36% are Iranian made while 40% are Russian made parts. Tehran and Moscow are to establish a joint venture to operate Bushehr because Iran has not yet had enough experience in maintaining such installations.

Reactor data

Reactor unit	Reactor type	Net capacity	Gross capacity	Construction started (Planned)	Electricity Grid	Commercial Operation	Shutdown
Bushehr-1	VVER-1000/446	915 MW	1,000 MW	01.05.1975	01.07.2010		-
Bushehr-2	VVER-1000/446	915 MW	1,000 MW	(01.01.2011)	-	-	-
Bushehr-3	VVER-1000/446	915 MW	1,000 MW	(01.01.2012)	-	-	-
Bushehr-4	VVER-1000/446	915 MW	1,000 MW	Cancelled	-	-	-

See also

• Nuclear program of Iran
• Iran and weapons of mass destruction
• List of nuclear reactors
• Darkhovin Nuclear Power Plant
• Industry of Iran
• Energy in Iran

External links

• FACTBOX-Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant