The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydun Abbasi-Davani, said earlier this month that Iran could stop enrichment to 20 percent once it had stocked up enough fuel for the 5-megawatt Tehran reactor.
That is the only reactor in Iran that requires fuel enrichment that high—actually 19.75 percent.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) says Iran already has immense stocks of such uranium if its only purpose is to fuel the TRR.
ISIS issued a report last week saying, “ISIS calculates that Iran has already stockpiled enough 20 percent LEU [low enriched uranium] to run the TRR for 5-to-10 years at 5 megawatts thermal and 10-to-20 years if the reactor operates at 3 megawatts thermal, its current power level.”
ISIS said the current stockpile of 20 percent uranium, if further enriched to the 90 percent required for weapons, would only provide about half of the weapons-grade uranium needed for a nuclear device.
Therefore, ISIS said, the Big Six should not accept Abbasi-Davani’s offer to halt 20 percent enrichment at some unstated point in the future but “should reject anything less than an immediate freeze.”