Iran to inaugurate Bushehr N plant soon

An Iranian official has announced a plan for the official inauguration of Bushehr’s nuclear power plant in southern Iran following the successful pilot launch of the plant.

“Bushehr nuclear plant will soon be officially inaugurated in the presence of Iran’s president and either the president or the prime minister of Russia,” Mohammad Hossein Jahanbakhsh, provincial governor of Bushehr, as saying on Thursday.

Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi had announced that Bushehr power plant had reached “the criticality stage, [meaning] it has been successfully launched.”

The top Iranian diplomat emphasized that the most modern technologies have been used in the construction of the plant and reiterated that it is amongst one of the safest nuclear power plants in the world.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) also previously announced that the facility is quake-proof and will never experience a situation similar to Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Bushehr power plant, which is Iran’s first nuclear power plant, operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The construction of Bushehr power plant started in 1975 when Germany signed a contract with Iran. Germany, however, pulled out of the project following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran then signed a deal with Russia in 1995, under which the plant was originally scheduled to be completed in 1999, but completion of the project was repeatedly delayed. The nuclear power plant was finally finished with the help of Russia following a three-decade delay.

In October 2010, Iran started injecting fuel into the core of the reactor at Bushehr nuclear power plant in the initial phase of its launch. However, engineers began removing the fuel rods in late February for safety reasons.

The unloading of the fuel delayed the plant’s joining the national grid, initially scheduled for the beginning of 2011.