Iran ready to double nuclear work in bunker: IAEA - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/iran-ready-sharply-increase-nuclear-bunker-iaea-163733424.html " VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran is set to sharply expand its uranium enrichment in an underground site after installing all the centrifuges it was built for, a U.N. nuclear report showed on Friday, a move that could increase Western alarm about Tehran's nuclear course. The latest quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran came 10 days after the re -election of U.S. President Barack Obama , which raised hopes for a revival of nuclear diplomacy with Iran following speculation that Israel might bomb the nuclear facilities of its arch-enemy soon. The Islamic state has put in place the nearly 2,800 centrifuges that the Fordow enrichment site, buried deep inside a mountain, was designed for, and is poised to double the number of them operating to almost 1,400, according to the confidential IAEA report obtained by Reuters. "They can be started any day. They are ready," a senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA's investigation said. If Iran chose to dedicate the new machines to produce higher -grade uranium, it could significantly shorten the time it would require for any bid to build an atomic bomb. Iran says it needs to refine uranium to make reactor fuel. Tehran has produced about 233 kg (512 pounds) of higher -grade enriched uranium since 2010, an increase of 43 kg since August this year, according to the report issued in Vienna. That could be sufficient for one bomb, security experts say. But the Iranians have fed about 96 kg of the uranium refined to 20 percent of fissile concentration for conversion into fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran, the report said. Such conversions make it harder for the material to be processed into 90 percent, or bomb-grade, enriched uranium and could be a step by Tehran meant in part to counter Western suspicions of a covert atomic bomb program. But the stockpile of 20 percent uranium gas has still grown by nearly 50 percent to 145 kg in the last three months, approaching the amount required for a nuclear weapon.”
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