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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Wed Jan 19 2011 - 15:46:00 EST
January 13, 2011
http://www.rferl.org/content/nuclear_fuel_bank/2274898.html?page=1&s=1&x=1#relatedInfoContainer
New International Nuclear-Fuel Bank Likely To Find Few Customers
by Gregory Gleason
When Russia’s quasi-commercial, quasi-strategic nuclear monopoly Rosatom
announced the opening of a nuclear fuel bank in remote Siberia last
December, it was a milestone in the nuclear age. The goal of the fuel bank
is to offer a nuclear fuel supply of last resort to a country denied access
to nuclear fuel.
The irony of the fuel bank is that if it is successful in changing the
complexion of the international nuclear fuel trade, no country actually will
need to turn to the fuel bank to use its services. The fuel bank will be
most successful if it is never used.
The idea of the nuclear fuel bank is not new. Concepts for the establishment
of a reserve of strategic nuclear materials have been around since the
beginning of the nuclear age. The ideas arise out of the basic paradox of
nuclear power. Nuclear power has the Janus-faced quality of being at the
same time potentially very beneficial and yet very dangerous. Knowledge
cannot be unlearned. The nuclear genie cannot be returned to the bottle. So
how is it possible to harness nuclear science’s peaceful benefits while
reining in the risks of the world’s most dangerous weapon?
When Dwight Eisenhower presented the *“Atoms for Peace”
plan*<http://ttp//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B8R-umE0s0&feature=related>to
the UN General Assembly in 1953, he called for sharing the benefits of
nuclear technology with the entire world and for resolutely opposing the
spread of nuclear weapons. Eisenhower imagined isolating nuclear weapons
from the influence of the international politics of nation states by
creating a neutral and independent repository for fissile nuclear materials.
He proposed establishing a nuclear repository under the control of an
international agency.
Eisenhower’s idea of an international agency was realized in the
establishment under the auspices of the UN of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). But the idea of a fissile-materials depository
languished. During the Cold War no country was prepared to hand over control
of its nuclear materials to an international body, let alone another
country.
*Closely Intertwined*
The fate of nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear reactor technology has
been closely intertwined. Every step to control nuclear weapons has
constrained the nuclear power industry. Every step to free up the nuclear
power industry around the globe has threatened to weaken the nuclear
nonproliferation regime.
The resolution of this dilemma is to close the nuclear-fuel cycle and keep
the most risk-laden aspects under the oversight of the IAEA. The fuel bank
is a wedge that closes the fuel cycle and depoliticizes the use of nuclear
fuel for power generation. The idea of the fuel bank in its present form was
first proposed to the IAEA by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in January 2006
and then was given a boost forward by a $50 million matching contribution to
the Nuclear Threat Initiative by the American financier and philanthropist
Warren Buffet in September 2006.
In March 2010, the IAEA formally signed an agreement with Russian
authorities to establish the fuel bank and the agreement was put into
practice in December 2010 after approval by the IAEA Board of Governors. The
U.S. government supported the fuel-bank idea. The U.S. government put into
effect a *new agreement*
<http://www.rferl.org/content/feature/2235831.html>with Russia in
nuclear cooperation on December 8, 2010.
So when the doors of the International Uranium Enrichment Center -- the
world’s first i*nternationally managed facility*
<http://eng.iuec.ru/>capable of enriching uranium — swung open in the
Far Eastern city of
Angarsk, it ushered in a new period in international diplomacy.
*Single Most Significant Step*
The fuel bank is a repository for low-enriched nuclear fuel that can be used
in the most common form of nuclear reactor -- the light-water reactor. So
the new fuel bank is far from a repository for all fissile material. But it
is the single most significant step in the 65 years of the nuclear age in
bringing the technology to produce fissile material under international
controls.
The uranium industry passed through a classic boom and bust cycle. The boom
spurred by the Cold War led to the overproduction of uranium. As the Cold
War came to an end, nuclear materials were shifted from defense needs to the
private sector, dampening prices.
The uranium mining industry suffered a steep downturn. Demand for uranium
ore dropped precipitously. Uranium prices were so low many mines became
unprofitable and closed. Public fears following the U.S. Three Mile Island
accident in 1979 and the USSR’s Chornobyl accident in 1986 constrained the
nuclear power industry. But now improved nuclear-safety measures, the
growing demand for energy, and the need to find carbon-free sources of
energy have refocused attention on nuclear power.
The chief stumbling block for the nuclear power industry is concern over
nuclear proliferation and the surreptitious diversion of nuclear materials
that could fall into the hands of terrorists. The focus of keeping nuclear
explosives out of the hands of irresponsible parties has centered on a few
key elements in the nuclear fuel cycle. The technology for isotopic
enrichment of uranium is one of these.
*Stop-Gap Measure*
The fuel bank is a limited, stop-gap measure designed to deter countries
from pursuing go-it-alone nuclear-enrichment technology. The nuclear-fuel
bank makes it possible for countries to forgo the expense of developing
enrichment technology without being subject to fears that reliance on others
for nuclear-fuel supplies would make them dependent.
The fuel bank gives the IAEA the ability to ensure access to nuclear-fuel
supplies for conventional light -water reactors at “market prices” in the
event of a political dispute between fuel suppliers and consumers. The fuel
bank does not provide broad and privileged access to uranium supplies.
Moreover, the bank can be used only in extraordinary circumstances and only
to provide specific amounts of nuclear fuel at market prices, always subject
to stringent IAEA oversight and monitoring conditions.
The real benefits of the fuel bank precede its use. One benefit is purely
psychological. The existence of the fuel bank offers psychological
assurances to developing countries that taking a development path of greater
reliance upon nuclear energy would not put them in a position where, in the
event of some future political dispute, their access to fuel supplies could
be manipulated for political purposes. It thus encourages countries to move
in the direction of nuclear power.
The other benefit of the fuel bank idea is diplomatic. The fuel bank
presents a disincentive to developing countries to discourage them from
investing in the costly and hazardous business of uranium enrichment. Now
that it has become unnecessary to enrich uranium for the purposes of power
generation, the countries that are sincerely oriented on peaceful
development have guaranteed access to nuclear fuels.
Iran over the past five years has committed itself to nuclear
self-sufficiency. Iran’s chief diplomat, Manuchehr Mottaki -- before he was
replaced last December as foreign minister and replaced by Ali Akbar Salehi,
the former head of the Iranian Atomic Agency -- frequently asserted Iran’s
“inalienable right to” carry out nuclear activities beyond the reach of the
oversight capacity of the IAEA.
The UN Security Council has passed a series of resolutions directing Iran to
halt uranium enrichment. In July 2006, the UN Security Council issued
Resolution 1696 demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment. In December
2006, the UN Security Council issued a second resolution, 1737, again
demanding that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment. In March 2007, the UN
Security Council issued Resolution 1747, demanding cessation of uranium
enrichment and imposing sanctions on Iran.
In March 2008, the UN Security Council adopted yet another resolution (1803)
reaffirming Resolution 1737 in calling for Iran to suspend uranium
enrichment activity and imposing a more extensive set of sanctions. In June
2010, the UN Security Council called for cessation of enrichment and imposed
further sanctions (Resolution 1929).
The alternative of the fuel bank makes uranium-enrichment unnecessary for
Iran’s economic development objectives. Yet Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad has made it clear that the government has not halted enrichment.
Iran’s choices draw greater attention to the irony of the fuel bank.
Countries that are irreversibly committed to developing their own control of
the full fuel cycle are not likely to use it. Countries that would benefit
from it the fuel bank will have ample access to commercial fuel procurement
and so would never find a need to use it.
*Gregory Gleason is a professor at the University of New Mexico and the
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. The views expressed
in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those
of RFE/RL, the U.S. government, or the U.S. Defense Department*
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