Iran's half-century nuclear odyssey has been marked by enormous financial costs, unpredictable risks, and unclear motivations. The program's covert history, coupled with the Iranian government's prohibition of open media coverage of the nuclear issue, has prevented a much-needed internal debate about its cost-benefit rationale. Critical questions about the program's economic efficacy and safety have been left unanswered.

• The program's cost—measured in lost foreign investment and oil revenue—has been well over $100 billion.
• The Bushehr nuclear reactor took nearly four decades to complete and cost almost $11 billion (measured in today's dollars), making it one of the most expensive reactors in the world.
• Bushehr provides merely 2 percent of Iran's electricity needs, while 15 percent of the country's generated electricity is lost through old and ill-maintained transmission lines.
• Despite aspirations to be self-sufficient, Iran's relatively small uranium resources will inhibit the country from having an indigenous nuclear energy program.
• Iran is the only nuclear state that is not a signatory to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, and its nuclear materials and stockpiles are some of the least secure in the world.
• Most ominously, the Bushehr reactor sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates.

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See full text at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Iran's Nuclear Odyssey: Costs and Risks