Location: Bushehr
Subordinate to: AEOI
Size: VVER 1000
Primary Function: Nuclear power generation

Description:

Bushehr is nearing completion and expected to come online some time in early 2007. It is similar to the technical configuration of Unit Four at Russia's Balakovskaya plant in Balakovo.

The Bushehr project began in 1975, before the 1979 revolution. The West German company Kraftwerke Union (KWU) started building what would have been a pair of 1,300MWe pressurized water reactors at that time. Bushehr-1 was 90 percent built and Bushehr-2 partly built when a series of problems began to plague the project. The first came in 1979 after the new government under the Ayatollah Khomeini decided to freeze construction of the reactors. The project was restarted shortly after the new government came to power. However, from 1980-1988, Iraqi warplanes conducted a series of bombing raids on the reactors and damaged them severely. Subsequently, the government requested assistance from foreign commercial contractors to rebuild and complete the power plants. Iran contacted various countries including Argentina, China, Russia, and West Germany. Finally, in 1995, Tehran and Moscow signed an $800 million agreement for the completion of Bushehr-1. Minatom assumed overall management of the work, utilizing organizations such as Zarubezhatomenergostroy (Nuclear Energy Construction Abroad) and Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrate Plant, which is contributing nuclear fuel. In addition, Russia has been training at least 10-20 graduate students and PhD students annually in Russian facilities such as the Kurchatov Institute. Other Iranian technicians may have been trained in Russia at various reactors and institutes over the years. The experience that these students and technicians gain may be used to operate Bushehr, but may also be used to develop new indigenous reactors, or other more discreet military applications.

Russian contractors have suffered several setbacks while constructing Bushehr due to problems related to the adaptation of the reactors' original German technology to fit new Russian designs. For instance, Russia's VVER-1000 reactors require six horizontal VVER steam generators. However, the Siemens 1,300MWe was only designed to hold four vertical steam generators. The metallurgical specifications of German and Russian equipment are also different. This may result in future corrosion and other problems.

With Bushehr nearing completion and scheduled to come online in early 2007, as per a deal signed between Iran and Russia in February 2005, fuel for the reactor will be supplied by Russia. Under the terms of the deal Iran is also required to return spent fuel rods from the Bushehr reactor to Russia.

Key Sources:
[1] Saratov, "Bushehr Reactors," GlobalSecurity.org, 25 September 2002, http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/bushehr-reactor.htm.
[2] "Russia: Balakovo NPP," NTI/CNS, http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/reactor/power/balakovo.htm. "Balakovo-4," PRIS Database, IAEA; IRNA, 22 June 1989, in JPRS-TND-89-014 (14 July 1989), p. 15.
[3] Shai Feldman, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in the Middle East, Harvard University's BCSIA Studies in International Studies (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997).
[4] Fred Wehling, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), 1998; Russian-Iranian Nuclear Cooperation Accord, 8 January 1995.
[5] Mark Hibbs, "Minatom Says It Can Complete One Seimens PWR in Iran in Five Years," Nucleonics Week, 29 September 1994, pp. 3-4.
[6] Mark Hibbs, "Russia-Iran Bushehr PWR Project Shows Little Concrete Progress," Nucleonics Week, 26 September 1996, p. 3.
[7] "Russia-Iran nuclear deal signed," BBC, 27 February 2005.

	Updated June 2006