Surprise! Iran to Build Two New Nuclear Facilities

An Iranian nuclear official announced on Thursday that the country plans to build two new nuclear power plants in the country’s southeast, just two weeks after a nuclear deal was signed between world powers (United States, UK, France, China, Russia) and the Ayatollah’s regime in Tehran.

The Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Ahmadian, said that the two plants will be constructed on the coastline of the Indian Ocean, and that the plants will be at full-working capacity within a few years.

“At present, necessary studies to build the two power plants are being carried out through cooperation with 17 research institutes and consulting engineers companies,” said Ahmadian, who estimated that “the new plants will cost around” $10 billion dollars and that the project will be wrapped up “in the upcoming three or four years.”

The head of the AEOI, and former Foreign Minister of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, added that he plans to hire 15,000 technicians to complete the project.

Thanks to the nuclear accord, which the Obama administration has trumped as a victory for diplomacy, Iran is slated to receive an estimated $150 billion dollars in frozen assets, which will easily cover the cost of the future nuclear plants. It does not appear as if the nuclear deal prohibits Iran from building additional reactors.

The United States has limited means to vet the new nuke plants, as Iranian officials have prohibited American or Canadian officials from inspecting any of their nuclear sites.

According to state-controlled Fars News:

Iran plans to produce at least 190,000 SWUs (Separative Work Units) of nuclear fuel at industrial scale, while it also thinks of producing about 1,000,000 SWUs later in future, which will be needed to fuel 5 power plants like Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Additionally, the regime in Tehran “has inked an agreement with the Russians to construct two nuclear power plants for the generation of electricity, and is also in talks with the Chinese for the construction of two more such power facilities,” the state-news service reported on Thursday.