According to what Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, in addition to international rejection, Iran’s nuclear program is facing a new and different obstacle related to climate change and an unprecedented increase in sea water temperature.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, said in an interview with the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency: “This summer, the sea temperature in the Persian Gulf has exceeded 35 degrees Celsius, while the average annual temperature is around 26 degrees.”
Water is used to cool nuclear reactors in an important part of their operation.
Without mentioning more details, Islami said: “Studies of new units also need to be revised after climate change invalidates the initial assumptions.”
Russia’s Rosatom is trying to develop Iran’s only nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
The Bushehr base station supplies electricity with a network that frequently breaks down and leads to blackouts.
Iran and the powers still subject to the nuclear deal (France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and China) began negotiations in April 2021 to revive it, which was first suspended in June of the same year.
After resuming in November, it was again suspended in mid-March despite significant progress in reaching an understanding, despite points of disagreement between Washington and Tehran.
In coordination with the European Union, the two sides had indirect negotiations in Doha for two days at the end of June, which did not lead to any progress, and on August 4, the negotiations were resumed with the indirect presence of the United States in Vienna.
After four days of negotiations, the EU confirmed that it had presented a “final” settlement formula to the two main parties.
Tehran initially presented its proposals to this text and last week America responded to them.
Tehran confirmed that it is considering this response before commenting to the European Union.
European and American officials note that Tehran and Washington are closer than ever to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Source: Lebanon Debate
