Government-Released Footage of Iranian Nuclear Facilities

The following are excerpts from government-released footage of Iran's nuclear project, which aired on various Iranian TV channels.

Spokesman: This is the Saghand mine. It was dug to a depth of 350 meters, and utilizes vertical cylinder-shaped wells in the belly of the earth. The uranium ore is removed from the depths of the earth by strong two-tiered elevators, and it is transferred to another factory for milling.

After the uranium ore is sorted according to a standard of size, it is sent to the YCP - the Yellow Cake Plant. There it undergoes a series of physical and chemical processes, and is converted to Yellow Cake, or uranium oxide.

Ardakan. At a distance of 35 km from this historic city lies the Yellow Cake Plant, or YCP. Thanks to the major efforts of Iran's nuclear specialists, this plant is now in completion stages. The plant's most important role to produce the uranium from the ore, and to convert it to uranium oxide at a concentration of 75%, known as Yellow Cake.

Today, Iran's nuclear industry has the power and ability to increase the Yellow Cake concentration level to 80 or even 90 percent. This technology is an important and admirable achievement, which must be properly protected.

Iran's nuclear fuel cycle begins in mining the uranium ore from natural mines, and continues in producing uranium concentrate in a form of uranium oxide known as Yellow Cake. Here begins one of the most important stages of the nuclear fuel cycle - converting various uranium compounds into uranium hexafluoride, or UF6. Today, praise God, Iran's young specialists managed - with much patience and thousands of precise experiments - to complete this important stage and to obtain the industrial capability to mass produce UF6.

Scientist: To celebrate the production of UF6 - uranium hexafluorid - we congratulate all the Iranian people, experts, and all the people involved, as well as all those who labored for this cause.

Spokesman: Uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, is an important compound in the fuel production cycle for nuclear power plants. This product is transferred to the centrifuge machines, and will become enriched uranium required as a raw material for nuclear reactor fuel.

Uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, is the main product of the Uranium Conversion Facilities, known as UCF, in Esfahan. Producing the UF6 broke the monopoly of countries with nuclear technology, which was intended to prevent other countries from achieving the sensitive technology of the nuclear fuel cycle. As a result, the Islamic Republic of Iran now proudly appears alongside the eight countries that have Uranium Conversion Facilities.

The production of heavy water is carried out in the heavy water plant in Arak. In this plant, hydrogen atoms with a neutron - called deuterium - are separated from hydrogen atoms without a neutron.