Here are the recent announcements by Salehi on when the reactor would be generating electricity at 40 percent of capacity and would be plugged into the national electrical grid:
On September 29, he said the link would be made by early February.
On November 27, he said the link would be made by late January.
Last week, on January 28, he said the link was scheduled for April 9. In other words, the start-up has been delayed by two months over the last two months, suggesting that nothing was done in the last two months.
Salehi also said the reactor would be started up February 20. That is when the reactor is to begin operating by heating water to produce steam that will drive the turbines to produce electricity.
Meanwhile, in Brussels the Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, expressed shock and concern, saying the recent Stuxnet computer worm attack on Iran’s nuclear program could have triggered an immense disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl power plant meltdown of 25 years ago in Ukraine.
Rogozin called for an investigation of Stuxnet, saying, “The virus, which is very toxic, very dangerous, could have had very serious implications. It could have led up to a new Chernobyl.”
However, there were no nuclear materials in Bushehr when Stuxnet was released in 2009. The nuclear fueling of Bushehr only began late last October.
When Stuxnet was first exposed last year, many analysts mentioned Bushehr as a probable target. But as more computer specialists have examined the worm, they have concluded it was designed exclusively to attack the Natanz centrifuge plant. The worm has been found in dozens of industrial plants all around the world, but it has had no effect on them. A plant must have a particular kind of equipment made by Siemens and other gear made in Poland or Iran before it will begin operating. Absent that, Stuxnet just lies dormant.
Ralph Langner, a German cybersecurity researcher who has studied Stuxnet extensively for months, scoffed at the talk of another Chernobyl at Bushehr. He said Stuxnet has entered computers in Bushehr, but “Stuxnet cannot technically mess with the systems in Bushehr. Bottom line: A thermonuclear explosion cannot be triggered by something like Stuxnet.”
When the new Bushehr reactor is up and running at full speed, it will produce 1,000 megawatts, adding about 2 1/2 percent to the Iran’s electricity supply. When the reactor is started, Iran will become the 30th country in the world to generate electricity via nuclear power.
Operating Bushehr will save Iran 11 million barrels of crude a year that would otherwise be devoted to power generation. That is the equivalent of three days of Iranian crude oil production. Iran has long argued that reducing the domestic use of oil and making it available for export was a key rationale for building Bushehr.
As for the cost, no figures have been announced since the late 1990s when the original $800 million contract was revised and Russia said it then totaled about $1.2 billion.