Timeline for Fordow Breakout

Well, sort of. I was looking for information on another subject in the “September 2009”:http://www.iranwatch.org/government/documents/us-wh-qomqandas-0909.pdf talking points/Q&A about the Fordow enrichment facility, when I noticed a (forgotten, at least to me) estimate of the amount of time Iran would need to produce an SQ of weapons-grade HEU at that facility.

In response to “How many weapons can [the facility] make?,” the portion called “IC-DRAFTED Q/As” states that

bq. The answer depend on the type and performance of the centrifuges installed at the facility, but we asses it would be capable of producing *approximately one weapons worth of highly enriched uranium per year,* if they chose to do so.

Based on the rest of the document, I think this estimate assumes 3,000 centrifuges, probably IR-1s. It also appears to assume unenriched or ~5% UF6 feedstock (since Iran hadn’t yet begun producing ~19.75% UF6), though I don’t know that for a fact.

So there you go.

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