Abstract:
Brazil's official nuclear program, which is associated with the FRG, parallels the autonomous nuclear program run by Comissao Nacional de Energia Nuclear (CNEN). Brazil's inauguration of a uranium enrichment facility at Ipero in March 1988 will allow Brazil to discontinue imports of radioisotopes used in medical treatment.

COUNTRY ABSTRACT:

Brazilian President Jose Sarney will inaugurate a uranium enrichment facility at Ipero in March 1988 in which the presidents of Argentina and Uruguay, Raul Alfonsin and Julio Sanguinetti will be present. (In mid-1987 Alfonsin took Sarney to visit Argentina's Pilcaniyeu enrichment center.) Brazil's facility is to enrich uranium to 20%. The facility, developed by the Navy, will be the first under Brazil's autonomous nuclear program. Claudio Rodrigues, superintendent of the Nuclear Energy Research Institute (IPEN) in Sao Paulo, where work on centrifuge enrichment process has been going on since 1982, stated that he hoped Ipero would reach 20% U-235 by mid-year. This would keep with the level of enrichment at which Brazil's research reactors work. The new facility would allow Brazil to discontinue imports of radioisotopes used in medical treatment. Admiral Pinheiro da Silva also announced the installation of a locally designed reactor at Ipero using components supplied by Brazilian industry.