Iranian authorities have decided to pull the fuel from the
country’s first commercial nuclear reactor a week before it was scheduled to go
online.
Last week, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy
Agency it would pull the fuel assemblies while running tests on the
1,000-megawatt Bushehr power plant on Iran’s Persian Gulf Coast. According to a
report by Reuters, people with knowledge of the project said a pump broke and
that small debris was circulating through the reactor’s primary cooling system.
Construction began on the Bushehr plant in 1975 but halted
when German engineers from Siemens left the country following the 1979 Islamic
revolution. In 1995, the Iranian government hired Russian state nuclear firm
Rosatom to finish the project. Delayed well past its scheduled 1999 opening by
construction hang-ups, the reactor’s first criticality was scheduled for last
week.
Foreign intelligence reports cited in news stories
fueled speculation that the Stuxnet virus played a role in the delay. The
sophisticated worm reportedly destroyed centrifuges in the Iranian uranium enrichment
plant at Natanz in 2009. Iranian officials denied Stuxnet was a factor in the
decision to pull Bushehr's fuel rods.