Inauguration of 'Waste Grave'; Increasing the Number of Inactive Nuclear Facilities

The unveiling of '12 new nuclear achievements' and three books was the reason for Hassan Rouhani's presence at a ceremony where the commencement of 'Phase One of Phase One' of Iran's nuclear waste management facilities was announced; a center designed based on Iran's nuclear development plans prior to the 'JCPOA', and apparently pursued on the same basis afterward. One of the three books unveiled by Hassan Rouhani is titled 'Nuclear Industry; An Iranian Masterpiece', and one of the 12 nuclear achievements is introduced as the 'Test Center for the Modernized Arak Reactor Fuel'. This comes while, in fulfilling its commitments under the 'JCPOA', the Islamic Republic was obliged to shut down the 40-megawatt heavy water reactor under construction in Arak (one of the two potential means of reaching the capacity to build a nuclear bomb), and by removing the reactor core, dismantling its components, and filling the core installation cavity with concrete, Iran complied with this obligation before the announcement of the implementation day of the JCPOA. Currently, the design of another reactor in Arak—with a capacity of 15 megawatts, using fuel that does not have the capability to produce plutonium compared to conventional heavy water reactors—is the subject of discussions between Iran and several countries, including China and the USA, and while the technical conditions of the reactor and the start of its construction are not clear for several years to come, testing nuclear fuel for such a hypothetical and non-existent reactor would be among the 'technical wonders and extraordinary feats'. According to the Lausanne nuclear agreement, Iran is obliged to use a limited number of old centrifuges known as IR-1 with a rotational speed of 1000 revolutions per second, and the use of more advanced types of centrifuges is prohibited for Iran. Based on the same agreement, Iran is also prohibited from constructing new centrifuges, and even before the JCPOA, the USA had repeatedly warned the Islamic Republic about the use of high-speed centrifuges. Concurrently with the unveiling of 'new nuclear achievements', Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of the Islamic Republic, announced on April 19, on the occasion of the 'tenth anniversary of nuclear technology', that the centrifuges known as 'Zonal' and 'Ultra' have medical applications and were made for 'gene therapy'; an advanced science that is still in the research, experimental, and developmental stages in fully developed countries. Salehi's reference to the medical application of the unveiled centrifuges (with a rotational speed up to five times that of the IR-1 centrifuges, which could likely be similar to the second and third generation centrifuges available to the Islamic Republic) is a circumvention of the commitments outlined in the 'JCPOA', which prohibits Iran from constructing, installing, and utilizing new centrifuges. Unlike the enrichment center 'Fordow', which borrowed its name from the local village, 'Waste Grave' is a stylized name, and its location is in the Anarak region, between Isfahan and Yazd. This name is derived from the combination of 'Pasman' (nuclear waste) and 'Goor' (grave), which is the title for the site managing nuclear fuel waste in the Anarak region. This site, like several other nuclear facilities, was designed in a context where Iran, based on evidence and documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency and also Security Council resolutions, intended to move towards nuclear capability. For this reason, at the mentioned site, which Ali Akbar Salehi previously claimed was selected after eight years of field study, it was supposed to install uranium and plutonium processing facilities alongside burying the nuclear waste from the Arak heavy water reactor. According to ISNA news agency, one of the managers of the mentioned facilities stated on the day of its inauguration: 'With the establishment of this center, the nuclear fuel cycle has been completed.' Previously, during Ahmadinejad's government and the announcement of 'Nuclear Technology Day', Iran had repeatedly emphasized the completion of the nuclear fuel cycle. The potential sensitivity surrounding the facilities, which have reportedly only had 'Phase One of Phase One' operational, is the potential capacity for processing radioactive materials, which Iran has been prohibited from undertaking. Given that the nuclear waste from the 1000-megawatt Bushehr reactor, according to a separate agreement that made the completion and delivery of the mentioned reactor possible by Russia, must be delivered to the latter country with payment, 'Waste Grave' cannot be the recipient of Bushehr's nuclear waste. The status of the construction of the next reactor in Arak, despite the announcement of groundbreaking next year, will not be clear for several years, thus Arak will not produce waste either. Therefore, it is unclear whether 'Waste Grave' with the extensive facilities planned in it should become the burial site for waste that Iran will not possess for years, or according to pre-JCPOA nuclear plans, a center for 'stabilizing fuel waste'; a very controversial and sensitive action that could provoke controversy due to its potential capacity to move towards the third way to achieve explosive material for a nuclear bomb. Currently, the heavy water production facilities in Arak, built at a cost of millions of dollars, are effectively unused, and their production, which was intended for use in the Arak reactor, must be delivered to the USA. The heavy water reactor under construction in Arak has effectively been shut down, the Fordow enrichment facilities, which were built underground, are engaged in activities other than enrichment, and the Natanz enrichment unit, designed to host up to 60,000 centrifuges, currently hosts only about 5,000 centrifuges. Undoubtedly, 'Waste Grave' will not have a brighter fate than other nuclear facilities that have effectively been removed from Iran's production cycle after the JCPOA.