Posted on 08/30/2004 12:43:34 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
/begin my translation
Israel informed U.S. that, in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, she plans to bomb Busheher Nuclear Power Plant, under construction in Iran, if Russian-supplied fuel rods are put into its reactor(s.) The fuel rods are now at a Russian port, which are to be shipped in the first half of next year. 24 years ago, Israel's squadron of (F-15's and) F-16's bombed Iraq's Osirak Reactor which was being constructed using French technology, stopping Iraq's nuclear weapon's program on its track. /end my translationIsrael To Bomb A Iran's Nuclear Power Plant
Bump for Israel!
Bump!
"Any shot firing at Iran will unite the Iranian behind their Mullahs to defend their land."
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but bombing a power plant will only give the Iranian Mullahs temporary support at best. Let Israel do it. Iranians aren't going to hate them anymore than they already do.
Khashyar, I can understand your feelings. You can be justly proud of Iran and its heritage. Unfortunately the mullahs for your country's sake and many of those in the Mideast cannot be allowed to obtain weapons grade plutonium.
I do hate the regime and I do not want them having a nuke bomb. But I think Nuclear energy to produce electricity is the right of Iranian people.
Desiderata: Maximum damage to the site, minimum risk to the warriors, maximum fear and loathing to other thugs.
3,000 people in America had a lot more right to stay alive on September 11, 2001, than Iranians have a right to build a nuclear power plant.
Whether you realize this or not, your leaders had a hand in helping those who perpetrated the evil murder of so many of our citizens and foreign visitors on that day.
You will be very lucky indeed if the only price your country pays is the loss of a nuclear plant you don't need.
You've been sold a lie that you need this plant. You have enough oil to generate electricity for many lifetimes. I agree it's stupid of the world to burn organic chemical compounds for energy when they can be used to create many fabulous things instead, but the answer to that is solar power satellites, not nuclear power plants.
Perhaps after your fascist leaders are gone, we can discuss this again. But right now, we are at war with all regimes that sponsor terror against us. That means we are at war with Iran.
I dont think these 2 issues have any relation with each other.
Whether you realize this or not, your leaders had a hand in helping those who perpetrated the evil murder of so many of our citizens and foreign visitors on that day.
They are not my elected leaders. They are some mullahs who came to power here by the help of your president (Carter) and your allies in Europe.
You will be very lucky indeed if the only price your country pays is the loss of a nuclear plant you don't need.
Iranian people need that nuclear plant and we will finish it cause we paid money for this.
You've been sold a lie that you need this plant. You have enough oil to generate electricity for many lifetimes. I agree it's stupid of the world to burn organic chemical compounds for energy when they can be used to create many fabulous things instead, but the answer to that is solar power satellites, not nuclear power plants.
We have no enough oil to burn for electricity. We have started that project and we will have to finish this. This project money was my money, my country money... I don't think you have the right to tell me what to do with my own money. I dislike Nuclear bomb and I hate the mullahs in Iran but it does not prevent me from having peaceful nuclear energy to produce electricity.
Perhaps after your fascist leaders are gone, we can discuss this again. But right now, we are at war with all regimes that sponsor terror against us. That means we are at war with Iran.
Once again, these are not my elected leaders.
Khashayer, there's a reason why a combined cycle combustion turbine power plants have taken the lead. They run on natural gas which Iran has in tremendous quantities. They produce little pollution. They take about two years to start producing electricty after breaking ground. They also require a much smaller staff than a nuke plant. Typically less than 10 people.
Add to that a combustion turbine can be started remotely when needed for added power and it can operated as a base load plant. A nuke can't be turned off and on. It must be run as base load plant. Each start and shutdown decreases the life of a reactor vessel.
Combustion turbines are also much cheaper to build. All of the components are prepackaged. Once the structure is built the packages are installed. Then the electrical, piping and instrumentation is connected and it's done. You also don't have the extensive start-up testing required for a nuke plant which can take years.
"combined cycle combustion turbine power plants"
How many of these do we have operating in the U.S.?
I don't have any numbers but I'd guess hundreds. That's one of the reasons for the increase in natural gas prices. GE came out with a single unit @200MW in the early 90's. The market took off when a power broker in the Midwest reneged on contracts and a utility had to go to the spot market in the summer time to buy a lot of power. They had to pay several dollars a kilowatt to get the power. That scared the hell out of a lot of utility executives in low reserve situations.
Between Enron and another company (possibly Fluor), GE had received orders for over 200 units. Of course when Enron tanked, a lot of those orders were cancelled. Still a lot have been installed around the country. If you've read anything about a power plant under construction or proposed, it's probably a combustion turbine.
Very interesting. Always learning.......Thanks.
I voted for Gerald Ford. Carter was an idiot.
I agree with you completely that his not supporting the Shah opened the door to worldwide islamofascism (distinctly different from Islam).
However, each country is ultimately responsible itself for its government. Your country will never be free if you look to scapegoat your problems rather than facing them and correcting them yourself.
If you don't understand the linkage between the deaths of my countrymen and women on 9/11 and Iran's nuclear power plant, then you have a lot to learn.
Just how many barrels of oil in your reserves do you have that you think is not enough?? I really challenge your assertions here. You are either brainwashed, totally misinformed, or lying about your energy reserves and "need" for a nuclear power plant.
You are FREE to say what you wish...
Where are you?
I'm free because my ancestors fought for my freedom.
One day you'll be an ancestor. Will your descedents be proud that you complained on FreeRepublic?
If you are an active part of a resistence in Iran, then I salute you. If not, then you should think about it.
I am in Iran!
Look, I never let any foreigner to decide for me any more. It has happened before in Iran's history but me, as a new generation young man, will never let the history repeat itself.
You are free because you are not surrounded by Muslim countries. You are free because your Constitution insists on Separation of State & Church.......... etc
I am a simple Iranian citizen who is tired of puppet tyranny in Iran and want to be heard!
In the American Revolution, our first revolutionaries belonged to the Sons of Liberty. It was an underground resistence with cells, where members of one group did not know all the members of any other group.
Members learned different skills preparing for the revolution. They learned how to operate artillery. They learned how to acquire and fire weapons (front loading, single shot muskets in those days). They learned military strategy. They secretly printed pamphlets discussing the ideas for new government, and the reasons for their rejection of the British monarchary for their government.
Later, when war broke out, they wished they had learned more. A German officer came to our revolution and taught military discipline and faster techniques for loading the muskets. The French had an interest in lessening British power and decided to assist us by sending ships to counter the British navy.
We needed assistence from foreigners who had selfish reasons for assisting us, but we sought that assistance and took it.
We were lucky that the British monarchy had to transport troops to fight us over a wide ocean, whereas revolutions that have to overthrow rulers where the troops live in the same country have a much more difficult time.
I do not underestimate the difficulty of an endeavor to change your government, nor the cost in lives. If you had more time, then the birth and coming of age of each new child would more and more overwhelm the older members of the totalitarian regime, who would slowly die off.
Destroying the nuclear power plant will buy you that time. We cannot let it go operational because it will be used to build nuclear bombs to be smuggled into our country and donated, killing tens of thousands of my fellow citizens.
If you don't have the nuclear plant, we can wait and let your people in your own time change the government of your country to one that is less intent on our destruction.
Believe me, you have been told lies about this plant. Your country does not need it. Your country is immensely rich in oil reserves. If you don't know this, maybe it is because your government doesn't want you to know that they have the wealth to improve your lives greatly. Perhaps they have decided not to improve your lives because they know that a poor and ignorant people is much easier to control.
If you make it a point of national pride to defend your nuclear power plant, your fate will be much, much worse than if you accept that the completion of such a plant must wait until your government is not controlled by mad-dog killers who believe that God is a mad-dog killer.
I will pray for our Heavenly Father's help for your people as I prayed for the Iraqis and still do that God would have pity on them and deliver them from oppression.
But we also have an American saying: God helps those that help themselves. One cannot stand by when evil is being done and not oppose it. God expects us to act to bring about good and end evil.
The trouble between your government and my country is that we disagree about what is good and what is evil.
I wish you well. There is a Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. I am sorry that you are living in interesting times. I am older and live day to day by God's grace, but you sound like you have much life ahead of you, so I will pray for God's grace for your country, that you will have a chance to live out those years.
Rather than violent revolution, you may wish to think seriously about non-violent civil disobedience as a means to revolution.
There have been several very successful uses of this method in history--like Ghandi leading India to throw off the colonial rule of Britian in the 1930's and 1940's.
It was the method that Martin Luther King, Jr. used in our country to get civil rights (equal treatment) for black people in the United States in the 1960's.
An American philosopher, Thoreau, discussed this idea in the 19th century.
And when Jerusalem was occupied by the Roman Empire 2000 years ago, Yeshuah, whom we believe to be the Christ, advised his countrymen to overwhelm their oppressors with love and humor and not with hate. Give them more than they demand and shame them. If they slap you on the face, turn the other cheek.
The non-violent civil disobedience method may be a good strategy for a revolution in your country. You start with a small disobedience of a very unpopular law, and you take the consequences for disobeying it. If you have enough support, you can overwhelm their jails and courts and people will not be happy to see so many of their children taken from them to be punished. It can provoke a more wide spread understanding of the injustice you are fighting.
But one must take blows and not strike back for this method to work, and one must accept that some will die, at the beginning maybe many will die. You have to sicken the ones that punish you with the evil of the punishment, so they will see the wrong of it.
You have to change hearts and minds with your sacrifices and your soft spoken, loving discussion of the wrong you are trying to right. Anger and clenched fists and shouting will turn people away from your just cause, so they must be avoided.
It's very late here. I hope to find out your responses to this discussion tomorrow.
If you make it a point of national pride to defend your nuclear power plant, your fate will be much, much worse than if you accept that the completion of such a plant must wait until your government is not controlled by mad-dog killers who believe that God is a mad-dog killer.
I agree with the rest of your posts but not with this part.
Let me tell you that Nuke power plant was started in 1975 during the Late Shah reign. So it was legitimate that time and now it is not? And I wish I had a true independent government which I could defend.
It is you who has been said lie about "IRAN DOES NOT NEED IT" part. We really need it cuz we can not burn our oil to produce electricity.
I hope no one bombs that plant and leave it safe for our future use.
I chose the following article from an anti-American news source so you could believe it.
This was last year. The main deterent to Americans not hindering development of your oil reserves is the nuclear plant with the threat it poses to our country under your current regime.
That we were not standing in the way of the Shah building such a plant only boosts my statement that it is the danger of the current regime to us that is the only obstacle, that once that regime is replaced we will not object to a safe nuclear plant for your country.
Middle East
Iran's oil bonanza and its problems
By Hooman Peimani
Iran's July 14 announcement of the world's second biggest oil field after Saudi Arabia's Ghawar development appears certain to change the global equation on oil production, to fatten Iran's strained foreign reserves, to involve it ever more deeply in the sticky problems of petroleum contact negotiations, and to present the country with problems as well as promise.
Abolhasan Khamoushi, general director of Iran's Oil Development and Engineering Company (ODEC), confirmed on Monday the discovery of the field, in the vicinity of the Iranian Persian Gulf port of Bushehr. Apart from its importance as the world's second largest crude reserve, at an estimated 38 billion barrels, its discovery provides proof that Iran possesses far larger oil reserves than previously thought, a development with a predictable impact on the interest of the major oil companies and their respective governments in that country's political and economic direction.
Even without any major future oil discovery, the Monday confirmation increases Iran's international importance as a heavyweight oil supplier with an expected increase in its international status the extent of which is yet to be seen. Iran's strategic importance to the West, and a major reason for decades-old American attempts to meddle in its politics, revolves around its vast oil reserves, estimated at 90 billion barrels even before the new discovery. Discovery of major new fields helps Iran prolong its oil exports and, increasingly so, its petrochemical exports as the country pours development money into upstream production facilities.
The Iranians hope that the discovery will sustain the country as a major producer and continue as a major export item, in which they have already invested billions of dollars since the late 1980s. Petrochemical exports generate about US$1 billion dollars a year. However, Iran must develop its new oilfields and keep investing in the operating ones to meet growing domestic needs as its soaring population increasingly demands development, while at the same time increasing its crude and petrochemical exports.
This requires enormous annual investment. Given Iran's growing need to invest in a wide range of sectors, developing such investment is becoming more difficult. For example, the Iranian Oil Ministry annually invests about $3 billion in its operating oilfields to keep their production at a high level to satisfy the domestic market and to export daily about 3 million barrels. Given these realities, depending on the size of projects, partial or total foreign investment has become a necessity for developing new major oilfields. To maintain control over the strategically important oil industry and to prevent foreign political and economic influence, the Iranian government has favored buy-back contracts in place of direct foreign investment in oil development projects.
Through this measure, Tehran has only addressed some of its foreign investment requirements. It demonstrates the reluctance of multinational oil companies to get involved in buy-backs and reflects the political pressure exercised mainly by the American government on potential investors to deny Iran the development of its oil industry, its main source of revenue in foreign currency, and to retard its economic progress.
Consequently, Iran has yet to find an investor for the development of its Azadegan oilfield, for example. After its discovery about two years ago, its phenomenal oil reserves - 26 billion barrels - have not yet helped Iran find a reliable investor. Under American pressure, a group of Japanese oil companies interested in its development delayed signing a $2 billion contract with the Iranian Oil Ministry by the mutually-set deadline of June 30 despite two years of negotiations. (See Americans stymie Japan-Iran oil deal, July 4).
The Americans are bringing pressure on the Iranians to renounce their attempts to develop nuclear weapons. Japan appears to have knuckled under because of the importance of the American export market for its troubled economy and its reliance on the US for security. Tokyo appears to remain interested, and may condition its signing of the contract on Tehran's satisfying the American demand on its joining the additional protocol to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 or a similar agreement.
The Japanese-Iranian negotiations are still officially underway. Despite the Iranians expressing optimism that the contract will ultimately be signed, Tokyo's approval will require its standing in the face of Washington's pressure, a possibility, but still not a certainty.
Regardless of the negotiations' outcome, the case reveals the difficulty of attracting foreign investment for the Iranians even when they offer a tempting and promising contract involving a major oilfield with strategic importance to oil companies and their respective governments. Against this background, Iran is now facing a great challenge to find reliable investors to help it develop its newly-discovered oilfield. While there should not be any shortage of investors in principle given its phenomenal oil reserves, turning those interested investors into committed ones may likely be a Herculean task for the Iranian oil industry.
The discovered field combines three neighboring plots with estimated reserves of about 38 billion barrels. According to Khamoushi, the Iranian Oil Ministry's preliminary studies suggested that the Ferdows field, the Mound field and the Zagheh field contained 30.6 billion barrels, 6.63 billion barrels and 1.3 billion barrels, respectively. The Iranians are now undertaking appraisal work to determine the dimensions of the fields. The field is equal to Kazakhstan's Kashagan oilfield, which is the world's second largest oilfield only after Saudi Arabia's Ghawar. The latter reportedly still has 70 billion barrels of extractable crude after more than half a century of operation.
As is true for any oilfield, the volume of economically-sensible extractable crude is likely to be significantly less than its estimated total reserves. For example, the amount of recoverable crude in the Kashagan field is estimated at 7-9 billion barrels, whereas Iran's Azadegan oilfield, with estimated reserves of 26 billion barrels, has only about 9 billion recoverable barrels. Additional geological tests and drilling will be required to determine the exact recoverable volume of the new Iranian field.
Nonetheless, the recent oil find is certainly a positive development for Iran. Added to its existing proven reserves, the discovery has pushed up Iran's previous status as the holder of the world's fifth largest oil reserves. More than that, in addition to other relatively recent discoveries such as the Azadegan oilfield, the latter provides ground for optimism in the existence of much larger oil deposits, including in its central part, which has long been suspected of having hydrocarbon reserves.
Dr Hooman Peimani works as an independent consultant with international organizations in Geneva and does research in international relations.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Jul 18, 2003
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