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Iran's Other Nuclear Timebomb

(National Post-Canada) Olivier Guitta - Bushehr, where Iran's oldest and main nuclear plant is located, is a city of over a million people that sits in one of the most active seismic regions in the world, at the intersection of three tectonic plates. In April 2013, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Bushehr; luckily the plant was not online at the time. After Russia provided necessary nuclear fuel, the plant went operational in July 2013. Iran is the only nuclear-operating country that has not signed any of the major international safety conventions. By a quirk of geography, Bushehr, in southwestern Iran, is much closer to major population centers in the Arab nations of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar than it is to other large Iranian cities. Moreover, the northwesterly winds would push any radioactive leak right towards those countries. So any accident at Bushehr would have far more repercussions in the Arab world than in Iran itself. The writer is director of research at the Henry Jackson Society in London.
2014-04-01 00:00:00
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