What are the risks of bombarding Iran's nuclear facilities?

The general director of the OIEA, Rafael Grossi, said last Monday that the military escalation “increases the possibility of a radiological release with serious consequences for people and the environment.”

Uranium enrichment plants are used to accumulate supplies of a particular type (or isotope) of uranium.

“When you extract uranium from the soil, it comes in two ways: 99.3% is Uranium-238 and 0.7%, or approximately an atom between 150, is Uranium-235 and this is what is needed to work in a nuclear reactor,” explains Professor Paddy Regan of the University of Surrey and the National Laboratory of Physics of the United Kingdom.

The nuclear enrichment process means basically increasing the amount of uranium-235.

This is achieved by taking uranium in its gaseous form and processing it in centrifuging machines, Reman explained.

And since Uranium-238 is heavier than the required uranium-235, the two separate as they turn. This is repeated again and again to increase enrichment.

Nuclear centrals usually need between 3% to 5% of this enriched uranium to generate a controlled nuclear reaction that releases energy.

But when the objective is to manufacture a nuclear weapon, a much higher proportion of Uranium-235 is needed: about 90%.

Essentially, the more enriched the uranium is, the greater the explosion of energy when the atoms are divided.

The OIEA indicated that the Uranium of Iran has reached around 60% enrichment, so it is on the way to concentrate enough to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

However, shooting a rocket against the duly stored enriched uranium deposits would not represent a “nuclear incident” of the same scale as the disasters in nuclear plants such as Fukushima or Chernobyl.

“Highly enriched uranium is approximately three times more radioactive than not enriched uranium,” said Professor Jim Smith, from the University of Portsmouth, who has studied the sequelae of the Chernobyl disaster.

“But, in fact, on the scale of things, none of them is particularly dense in radioactivity. It would not cause an important problem of environmental pollution,” he said.

“We are more concerned about what fission products are called: the elements in which uranium is broken down when it is in a reactor or in a pump, such as radioactive cessium, radioactive stroncing and radioactive iodine. They represent a major problem of environmental pollution.”

But since no nuclear reaction is being carried out in the enrichment plants, and the explosion of a bomb would not trigger a reaction, these dangerous “fission products” radioactive would not be present, Smith added.

However, uranium could be dispersed locally by an explosion.

In the installation of Natanz, after the bombing of Israel a few days ago, the OIEA found radioactive contamination on the site, but warned that the radioactivity levels outside the place remained unchanged and at normal levels.

“With uranium, radiation does not travel very far,” said Professor Claire Corkhill, president in mineralogy and radioactive waste management at the University of Bristol.

But for people close to the site, there could be health risks, he added.

“In terms of toxicity for the human body, you certainly don't want to inhale uranium particles and you don't want to ingest them,” he said.

“That is because uranium particles could be trapped in the cells, inside your lungs or your stomach, and slowly, decompose radioactively, which would cause damage.”

In addition to radioactivity, chemical exposure could also be a problem for those who are close.

“If there were an incident and the centrifuges released the uranium hexafluoruro, the gas contained within them, then it would be a really serious chemical incident,” said Professor Simon Middleburgh, a scientist of nuclear materials at the University of Bangor, in Wales.

“If this uranium hexafluoruro comes into contact with the humidity of the air, it is really corrosive and unpleasant because it can form a very, very strong acid,” he said.

“But it will not have a great environmental impact beyond the very, very local area.”

The OIEA said this week that its Incident and Emergencies Center works 24 hours and will continue to monitor the status of Iran's nuclear facilities and the level of radiation in its plants.

*This article was published on June 20 and was updated with the news of the US bombing against nuclear facilities in Iran.

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