The feared 75% cut to the budget for constructing the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility in South Carolina did not happen. The cut may be 53% or it may be 27%, depending on whose calculations you read. 

Many organizations that oppose nuclear power also oppose MOX. That isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that these organizations also oppose nuclear weapons. 

How to dispose of weapons plutonium has been an issue since the drawdown of nuclear weapons began. The controversy continues.

After a nuclear weapon is disassembled, what happens to the plutonium?

It would seem that combining something meaningful to Iranians (the fatwa) with something equivalent and meaningful to Westerners (more intensive IAEA inspections) could be a win-win. Was that what the Supreme Leader was proposing?

When one nation’s leader stands in front of the UN and draws a clear red line on a silly looking bomb and says – this is the point for attacking Iran then it should be easy to understand and justifiable. Is it? The problem quite simply is it depends upon your assumptions. This is a follow–on post to the one I wrote last week on Iran's uranium enrichment capability.

Do you ever read the IAEA safeguards reports and think they are written in gibberish? That is because the nuclear safeguard community has their own language and culture. I reviewed the most recent report IAEA report published in Feb. 2013, and try to make clear where Iran stands on their 20% uranium enrichment and how close Iran is to what Israeli PM Netanyahu referred to as the “red line” for attack.

Today’s big news is that Iran and the P5+1 have agreed to further talks. That’s important because the only way the sides will reach agreement is through detailed talks out of the public eye.

Seven previous posts contain the publicly available evidence on Parchin and some of the interpretations. This post puts it all together.

Iran has cleaned up sites before in an attempt to prevent IAEA inspectors from finding evidence of undeclared activities having to do with nuclear energy. 

Overhead photos have shown extensive activity in the area of the Parchin building identified as the one holding the explosion test chamber since the IAEA requested to visit it in early 2012. 

If such a chamber exists in the identified building, what has it been used for? Several possibilities have been proposed: several types of testing for nuclear weapons development, manufacturing diamonds by use of explosives, or perhaps something else. 

The three previous posts in this series address the information that is openly available on Parchin’s alleged explosives test chamber (the leaked drawing, overhead photos, and the November 2011 IAEA Annex). It’s not much. 

The November 2011 IAEA report on Iran contains an annex summarizing selected information from the IAEA files on the possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program. 

We have direct information about Parchin in the form of overhead photos, which, however, are not unambiguous to interpret.