Iran Begins Construction of Four New Nuclear Plants

Iran began construction on four more nuclear power plants in the country’s south, with expected total capacity of 5,000 megawatts, the official Iranian state media reported on Thursday, February 1.

Iran seeks to produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2041. The country has one active nuclear power plant, a 1,000-megawatt plant that went online with help from Russia in 2011.

The report said the four new plants are being built in the port town of Sirik on Iran’s east coast, some 1,150 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran.

Iran is also building a 300-megawatt plant in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, near the western border with Iraq. The IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said last year that Iran has increased the rate at which it is producing near-weapons-grade uranium.

Director General Rafael Grossi said in the report that Iran “in recent weeks had increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023,” according to an IAEA spokesperson.

Iran had previously slowed the rate at which it was enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, which is just a short technical step away from the weapons-grade level of 90%. (TOI / VFI News)

“God, we ask that You don’t allow Iran to materialize its dreadful nuclear plans that could potentially endanger the lives of billions of people around the world. We ask for Your divine intervention, that Iran will not fulfill its nuclear goals and that a nuclear war will never occur.”