Brazil prepares to power up uranium-enrichment plant

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — While the world scrutinizes Iran's nuclear plans, Latin America's biggest country is weeks away from firing up the region's first major uranium-enrichment plant.

That move will make Brazil the ninth country to produce large amounts of enriched uranium, which can be used to generate nuclear energy and, when highly enriched, to make nuclear weapons.

Brazilians, who have long nurtured hopes of becoming a superpower, are reacting with pride to the new facility in Resende, about 70 miles from Rio de Janeiro.

Other countries enriching uranium on an industrial scale are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, China and Japan.

The plant initially will produce 60 percent of the nuclear fuel used by the country's two nuclear reactors. A third reactor is being planned. The government hopes to increase production eventually to meet all of the reactors' needs and have enough to export, Brazilian officials said.

"We want to build new power plants and grow our enrichment program to be self-sufficient," said Odair Dias Goncalves, president of Brazil's National Nuclear Energy Commission.

The Resende plant's inauguration had been set for Jan. 20 but was delayed because construction wasn't completed, Dias Goncalves said. The plant may begin uranium enrichment without the hoopla later this month, officials said.

Unlike Iran, Brazil is considered a good global citizen that isn't seeking nuclear weapons, although its military ran a secret program to develop a nuclear weapon as recently as the early 1990s.

But some U.S. observers fear Brazil's program will encourage more countries to make nuclear fuel, raising the danger of nuclear-weapons proliferation.

Brazil's nuclear-fuel needs, more than 120 tons of enriched uranium a year, don't warrant the country launching an industrial facility like Resende, said Lawrence Scheinman, a former U.S. arms-control official.

"There really isn't much justification for new enrichment facilities unless countries have a very substantial number of reactors to be serviced and don't want to depend on outside suppliers," he said.

Like Iran, Brazil has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. All of Brazil's 20 facilities using nuclear material are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

Brazilian officials worked closely with the IAEA throughout Resende's planning and construction, Dias Goncalves said.

Iranian officials, on the other hand, hid their uranium-enrichment work for 18 years and obtained much of their technology from a Pakistani-led smuggling ring.

The road to Resende hit a few bumps in 2004, when Brazil refused to let inspectors view centrifuges used in enrichment, saying they had to protect Brazilian-designed innovations.

After months of negotiations, the two sides agreed to let IAEA inspectors examine material coming in and out of the centrifuges but not the equipment, said Edson Kuramoto, president of the nongovernmental Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association.