Apr 13th - - Daily Telegraph - The Facts

 

It concentrates the amount of U-235, the fissile isotope of uranium. Natural uranium has 0.7 per cent of U-235. The rest is non-fissile U-238. Nuclear fuel generally has three to five per cent U-235, while highly enriched uranium (HEU) for atomic bombs requires more than 90 per cent.

 

 

A metal cylinder that spins at very high speed to separate the lighter U-235 atoms from U-238. Uranium is first chemically converted into uranium hexafluoride (UF6). This is then turned into a gas and fed into a "cascade" - a series of interconnected centrifuges - that concentrates the amount of U-235. Iran has already made enough UF6 for more than 10 bombs' worth of HEU.

 

 

A single cascade of 164 centrifuges of the old-fashioned "P1" design. Mystery surrounds its experiments with faster "P2" models.

 

 

Iran's current cascade could theoretically be enough for a bomb, but the International Institute for Strategic Studies calculated this would take 13 to 17 years. With a plant of 3,000 machines, it could produce one bomb's worth of HEU in less than a year.