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IAEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank
Kemeno writes "The International Atomic Energy Agency voted on Friday to form a nuclear fuel bank to help developing countries acquire nuclear fuel without having to enrich uranium themselves. Warren Buffet contributed 50 million dollars to a pool of 150 million with contributions from many different countries. The goal of the program is to provide countries with a source of low-grade enriched uranium suitable for fueling reactors but not for creating nuclear weapons."
Besides, what could possibly go wrong?
This has to be the best addition to the IKEA catalog yet! Grab my tape measure, allen key and let's go shopping!
Any new power plants being planned in your country?
Can you poison the fuel used in the rods so that it can't be used in weapons at all without starting the enrichment process over from the beginning? I understand that you need 70-90% U-235 for a weapon and only about 3% to run a reactor. But 3% enriched fuel is a better starting point for making a weapon than raw ore, is it not?
1. get clean energy to people in the developing world.
2. getting rid of people who oppose nuclear power in the developed world.
2. build nuclear plants.
3. synthesising gasoline and diesel fuel with nuclear power.
4. no more CO2!!! profit!
Notice: no ?????? mark step.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
So from your sarcastic comment, you believe that it's a good idea for, say, the Somali warlords to have nuclear weapons? Fascinating.
No I think he is saying "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for life."
I don't think any current nuclear powered countries would appreciate their fuel supplies controlled and rationed by a central body.
If this is the best way, lead by example and have your fuel supplies controlled by a third party.
Oh.. you don't want to do that? National security issues? I thought so.
It is pretty hard to eat your own dog food.
I got that part. It was the "only the white man..." part that seemed a little, well, stupid. Of course racist, too, but it was against caucasians so it's OK.
Used correctly nuclear power is a clean energy source. The problem is used correctly nuclear power is not a cheap energy source. As nuclear power plants cut corners they find creative ways to ruin the environment. To me it seems like the developing world would be those most likely to cut corners to save cost, and ignore the health of themselves and the environment.
God forbid additional nations develop nuclear weapons: more countries would need to be taken seriously.
We may even need to increase the permanent members of the security council.
(That is how you acquire membership, isn't it?)
Then why didn't you say that?
Talking about Somali warlords having nuclear weapons is not the same as calling someone a racist.
I call bullshit.
government solidly in control
government elected by people
people lack severe ethnic/religion/language/race bias
not about to get blitzkreiged by a neighbor
So instead of supporting that poor countries get stuff like photovoltaics - which are modular, can be upgraded and are pretty much portable and 'place anywhere' (and clean!) - we're encouraging them to use something that involves transporting radioactive materials to what is essentially a very expensive environment-ruining nuclear-timebomb which they will need to pay for, build enough power infrastructure - roads for getting the enriched uranium in, and places to dump the very dangerous waste.
They should just give them free photovoltaics - you can just set a mini-plant in any of the villages, and you don't need expensive infrastructure either - nor a backup-plan when shoddy maintenance causes a meltdown.
What are these people smoking?
Once you have reactor grade fuel, you can create plutonium. That only requires an easy chemical separation, so you won't be needing centrifuges.
...and leave a legacy that will improve life in smaller countries, he should champion the development of cheap, abundant, safe nuclear power in the form of the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium and the plants are potentially much smaller and cheaper.
If they are not able to enrich uranium themselves, then they are certainly not able to take care of the spent fuel, which is much harder.
The idea of renting out whole self contained reactors is better, because they can be returned intact.
If I were a country in this current world I wouldn't want to depend on this pool of fuel. Other groups would have too much power over me, I'd rather be independent. Maybe if this was a Star Trek type world, with people being good at heart things would be different.
Water is clean? I guess if you don't count the destruction of ecosystems due to the need to divert and dam(n) rivers.
Wind? Solar? If you're splitting hairs and calling nuclear unclean, then I'm going to split hairs right back: Come up with a magical process, especially for solar, that doesn't involve horrible chemicals and the pollution they cause, did you? Nice. Where do I send my check to invest?
Remember, only the white man is civilised enough to play with dangerous toys.
Honestly, yes. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. The rich countries have a lot to lose, so we should be in control of weapons this powerful.
So the only country that was filthy and retarded enough to use not one, but even two... is telling others that they can't have those same weapons? Sjee, I wonder why.
Hello Nuclear Fuel Bank? My name Borat. I want make withdrawal, benefit my nation Tajikistan.
Here are a couple of alternatives to the paywall story:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9JSK4HO0.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-12/04/c_13634288.htm
http://www.google.com/search?q=iaea+nuclear+bank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism_(Foundation)
The Foundation presents nuclear (atomic) power as a religion, allowing their uncivilized neighbors access to the technology without understanding how it worked. Maintenance is done through ritual and ceremonies.
The original story was published in 1942.
You watched the movie "Countdown to zero".
kthxbye
Did anyone else read this as "IKEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank?"
My first thought was, "Man, those stores really do have everything!"
So long as the Chinese are now white.
And the Indians.
Of course those are just the two major non "white man" countries with nuclear weapons. Other countries have nuclear power, but not weapons. Brazil and Taiwan to name two.
The thing is it would be nice to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of crazies and unstable countries. Nuclear weapons aren't dangerous, and even can help prevent war, but only when they are in the hands of people who are loathe to use them. So long as they act as nothing but deterrents, they are fine. Not saying we might not be better off without them, but when they play only a deterrence role there's no problem.
Nuclear power, on the other hand, is something good for everyone. Modern reactors are very safe. It is a good way to cheaply supply a lot of energy, and a society needs energy to improve quality of life. Poor countries face many challenges, but energy is one of them and nuclear energy could really help out.
This creates a problem though. If they can turn the energy tools in to weapons, well then you can end up having nuclear arms in the hands of people who would use them out of spite, ignorance, etc. If you don't believe that have a look at the Vice Travel Guide to Liberia. We are talking about places where soldiers sacrificed children and ate their hearts.
Thus you can see while getting them nuclear power would be nice, countries want to make sure they don't get nuclear weapons with it.
I don't particularly mind the US or China having nuclear weapons. I really can't see either ever using them capriciously. I would mind Liberia or Congo having them because all it takes is whatever warlord gets them having an attack of the crazies and a lot of people are going to die.
Perhaps, it's because, the more nations get nuclear weapons, the more likely that an incident will happen which escalates into the end of the world? Everyone on Earth should be worried about nuclear proliferation, not just the U.S. I don't want to debate whether the U.S. was right or wrong to use nuclear weapons to end WWII, because as a rule, I generally like to not take responsibility for the decisions of past generations, or to re-fight old wars. But, as a practical note, I will say this - when only one country, which only used nuclear weapons in a very bad situation, there was no chance for M.A.D. of pretty much all life on Earth. We live in a different world today. Potentially, anyone like N. Korea or Iran could start the war which truly ends all wars (along with 99% of life on the planet).
As for the U.S., we've been reducing our stockpiles. Many of us would love to see a nuclear-weapons free world, but from a practical standpoint, that's probably not going to happen. I would, at least, like to see as little additional weapons being built as possible.
Finally, if someone has to have nuclear weapons, I'd rather see them in the hands of countries which seem like they are run by people who are rational *enough* that they probably won't try to start the nuclear world war (yea, sometimes politics in the U.S. can be a bit irrational, but I don't think *anyone* in the U.S. really wants to see us use nuclear weapons ever again if we don't absolutely have to). I truly worry that Iran with Nuclear Weapons will use them (or at least the threat of them) aggressively instead of defensively - e.g. invade their neighbors and threaten nuclear reprisal if any allies try to come to the defensive aid of the neighboring State.
When there is deflation, this is good for the consumer as he or she gets more product per dollar. When there is inflation the opposite is true.
Since we know nuclear fuel has a half-life, the currency these banks base their loans upon is deflating... While this is a bad thing for the bank, with a well supported backing this can only be good for the consumer!
A deflating currency is a great investment, even if only in the short term. And regardless of the demand, it naturally will deflate!
Half-life economics, brilliant!
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Do you really want people like THIS to have nukes?
http://www.cracked.com/article_18850_7-modern-dictators-way-crazier-than-you-thought-possible.html
The problem is used correctly nuclear power is not a cheap energy source. As nuclear power plants cut corners they find creative ways to ruin the environment
The problem is that the cost of nuclear power is inflated by the regulations that the anti-nuclear lobby imposed upon everybody as a very effective form of sabotaging the nuclear power industry.
Different from all other power systems, you cannot find examples of how the nuclear power plants have ruined the environment by "cutting corners". What they are doing is storing nuclear waste "temporarily" but in a highly secure way at the power station plants, instead of moving them to the non-existent "permanent" waste storage facilities.
The reason why permanent storage facilities do not exist is only because politicians have never agreed on where those facilities should be located and how they would be constructed. each time some proposal comes up it's immediately shot down by the anti-nuclear lobby.
The anti-nuclear lobby is financed by the taxes we, the citizens, pay. There are NGOs all over the world that get tax-exempt status because they are officially "pro-environment" organizations. Perhaps Wikileaks should tell us how much those NGO directors get in salaries (or do you remotely believe that everybody who works for those organizations is a volunteer?)
Do you know who Warren Buffet is or anything about him...?
No sig today...
TFA implies that nuclear fuel costs ~ $2 million/ton. And that 80 tons is needed 'to refuel one reactor'. Both seem awfully high to me. I always thought a reactor contained a few tons of Uranium at most.
Not that old saw again. This program would allow countries to run nuclear power plants without having to develop a hugely expensive supporting industry. The same way African countries currently import cars rather than having to develop a car industry from scratch. It's just another way of bootstrapping the economy.
If they opted for heavy water reactor types like the CANDU then they wouldn't need to enrich uranium in the first place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU
As best I can tell, given the 99% kill everything figure, you are assuming a nuclear war would extinct homo sap sap? I think not. I figure there are some astronomical stuff that can do us, but doing ourselves? Not quite yet.
End of the world stuff is popular with some now and I think the rhetoric should be avoided.. But for most people, say a 2 billion to 6 billion die off (over the next couple centuries) will *look* like the end of the world. But this is more a lack of tech then too much tech, or some sort of nuclear spasm. Hah, people say that when you are dying, it looks like the end of the world. :-) I suppose "saving the world" from the great unwashed dictatorships or whatever is sort of a popular idea, but I am not sure that "the world" is the sort of thing that you "save". But I could buy off on saving Western Civilization. :-)
Trade dependency of oil to dependency or uranium.
Everyone needs energy.
"So you don't allow our $POLITICALLY_MOTIVATED_GOAL. OK, no uranium for you then."
Suddenly the reasons for the stuxnet worm become clear... Money.
Hundred dollar notes.
Seriously: I can see the big horses at Siemens, General Electric & Co rubbing their hands (or is that hooves?) at the contracts coming from Third World.
Those big companies just *love* Big Tech, that's what they are apt at.
You are a few years too late. North Korea already has nukes for one, Iran is close, Egypt have has been working on it for years, and in Israel it's getting close to having a crazy fascist get the keys to the nuclear bombs let alone Pakistan and a few former Soviet republics.
A country even more batshit crazy than warlords in Africa already has the bomb. Just last week they shelled South Korea to extort more aid money. Cannibalism (like your anecdote above) is reported there as well.
As for the dirt cheap safe reactors - theoretically they could exist but they don't yet. I don't know why people always talk about untried technologies that only exist on paper as "modern reactors". Of course they are safe, you can't get anything safer than something that doesn't exist. I say build prototypes and test them out, but suggest laying off the bullshit about how perfect untried things are.
Breeders were an expensive and pointless dead end as shown many times in the 1970s because it is incredibly difficult to handle the highly radioactive materials with a short half-life produced. Those that wanted to pretend it was not a failure renamed such promising new and unrelated technologies as accelerated thorium reactors to "breeder" to save face.
Give up on the old shit that was shown to be shit and learn about something from the last quarter century instead. You've just been conned by Westinghouse or similar that want to fleece the taxpayer by selling some ancient failed experimental designs they still have on the books.
Wish that I had mod points. I would have modded you for the troll that you are. Your comment belies the fact that this is a UN operation and the UN is pretty much ran by non-white people. Just because a rich white man sees value in this, does not make it inheriting bad. In fact, far from it. Iran was trying to run part of their program through something like this with Brazil, Turkey so that they could lie. Now, if a program like this is set up, it will actually help other nations. Yet I have little doubt that trolls like you will still run around trying to destroy what is useful to all nations. Or do you prefer that smaller nations be denied the ability to run nuke plants, while allowing nations, such as Iran, and North Korea to build bombs?
Personally, I am guessing that you want one of those two nations to build those bombs.
By the market place. For example, America imports most of our power plant level uranium, even though we have the supplies and ability to make it here.
Likewise, most of all of EU nations import it since they do not have any.
So, the facts destroy your arguments.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While we HAVE participate in multiple wars, please tell us what wars in recent history that US started?
Perhaps we started WWI? Nope. Germany invaded others
Or WWII? Nope. Germany invaded others
Or Korean war? Nope. Communist Korea invaded south.
Or Vietnam? Nope. Communist nam invaded french held nam
Or Desert Storm I? Nope. Iraq invaded Kuwait
Or We started the nightmare in eastern Europe? Nope.
Or Afghanistan? Nope. Afghanistan launched it against the USA when they backed terrorists.
Or Desert Storm II? Well, since technically, there was a on-going war, no. However, I think that is a false. I would have to say that we DID in fact start that.
Of course, on nearly all of the other cases, it was larger nations invading smaller nations and our standing up for them. But, you do not like that. Perhaps you think that Iran should have the right to nuke say the middle east? Perhaps NK has the right to invade or nuke South Korea? Perhaps you feel that Venezuela has the right to tell Columbia and other nations what to do via terrorists so they should be allowed to build nukes?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...yes, because all those third world countries have proven themselves to be politically stable enough to handle the responsibility. Just look at that paragon of responsibility - Pakistan. Surely the world is better off now that there is a nuclear armed nation slowly deteriorating into islamic fascism. It will end well. Really.
This kind of comment would be better aimed at ending the various aid and loan schemes developed countries use to buy off the various dictators-of-the-week. Except in that case absolutely nothing of use would occur in said third world countries. Unless you count mass starvation as useful.
Seriously, it's kind of surprising that a nuclear fuel bank as described didn't already exist.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
by that standard nobody has ever started a war ever.
Did Austria-Hungary start world war 1? Nope. the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist did.
which is of course crap and just an excuse but that's how politics works.
Did the US start the United States occupation of Haiti? Nope. the uppity locals threatened American business interests.
etc etc
there is always an excuse.
Always.
Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian not afghani.
Of course, on nearly all of the other cases, it was larger nations invading smaller nations and our standing up for them.
how noble that sounds.
It even sounds reasonable as long as you ignore how many such situations get totally ignored because it's nations the US gets on with doing it.
Whoever has nuclear weapons (US, Russia, China, France, Pakistan, India, North Korea and presumably Israel, so not really a "white man club") I think it is a good idea to keep this club as small as possible. Not as a mean to dominate other nations, but because proliferation simply causes problems for which we have no solution. The current solution is not ideal but until we find a good way to prevent a nuke to explode in an inhabited area, fighting to keep the number of nukes low is a good thing to do.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...yes, because all those third world countries have proven themselves to be politically stable enough to handle the responsibility.
They're every bit as stable as Pakistan is.
Poor, poor nuclear industry, hobbled by those rabid environmentalists. Crocodile's tears and all that.
Fact is that they got (and still get!) a huge financial boost military complex.
I believe it was more a reference towards imperialism , "The Whiteman's Burden" being fine example of that time.
That is precisely my point.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
and you keep him reliant on you for life.
If you're smart enough to recognize this, you're smart enough to turn down the fish. Independence / sovereignty is a choice, but you have to catch your own fish, if you want to keep it / them.
Remember, only the lazy and apathetic allow themselves to be herded into corrals of submissive dependence. Use your own solutions, your own resources, your own technology, to solve your own problems.
It's very hard to tell how stable a location will be over the time required for nuclear waste storage
How about the bottom of the ocean? There are vast regions of the abyssal plains that have been unchanged for a billion years or more.
Send a robot to bury 20 cm diameter x 2 meter long cylinders of vitrified waste under a 100 m layer of mud under a 5000 m of ocean, and come tell me about a scenario where that situation could be changed to harm the environment.
Instead of selling them nuclear fuels, we should give them technologies for renewable energy. Honestly nuclear power plants are a dead end. All methods for recycling and storing the waste safely are just ideas of concepts, and they do not work. And even if they would work there is only a limited space for storage. And then it is still dangerous. And on top of it classic nuclear fuels are a limited resource too. So why use a technology which has so many unsolved problems, instead of using one where we have working solutions at hand. True the big energy companies will loose market share. But hey, what do I care?
Taiwan has been building nuclear missiles for years actually. They're deathly afraid of China.
As for South America, I can't see why they'd really need them.
Japan's constitution specifically restricts them from using their military offensively, so they wouldn't have a reason to build them.
North Korea has built a bomb successfully, and they're working on perfecting their rocket technology. China really needs to talk them down and get them to relax, it's bad for business really.
And, Iran is currently working on enriching, which they always claim is for peaceful reasons but then they go and say stuff publically like, "Israel will be blown away in the coming winds of destruction along with anyone who helps them." And, crazy shit like that, so it's hard to take their "peaceful" talk seriously.
All I can say is, can't we all just get along? :-(
There's so many cool TV shows, movies and video games I'll miss out on otherwise.
He should finance renewable energy. Why give developing countries a legacy technology which produces so much more legacy (and no it does not matter if these are 100 Castors (100t each) per year or only 20. What I cannot understand is how people can be fan of a so much disputed technology which has definitely its problems. Also it cannot be the solution for our total energy needs.
There are cheaper saver and better working alternatives. Just lets use them.
While the arguments that this system can (and probably) will create economic dependency on the pre-refined uranium supply are indeed valid. I think the major push of this is to take the wind out of the sails of countries like iran that "claim" to be developing this technology for energy purposes. If we offer them a dirt cheap way (research free) to attain nuclear power, but not weapons then suddenly their arguments loose a lot of traction. They can still argue that they want the tech for themselves so that the dependence issue isn't there, but when the research costs involved keep adding up, it looks more and more attractive. So long as the regulated pool of uranium cannot be simply withheld as a further method of sanctions everything is good. As a side note, anything encouraging nuclear power is a step towards reducing carbon emissions especially in the developing world where its growing rapidly.
I agree that we should push forward on all fronts with renewable energy. But Thorium-based LFTR reactors solve most of the problems with nuclear energy, including the two biggest bug bears of them all: nuclear waste and safety. There is practically no waste in LFTR and the fuel is fantastically plentiful compared to Uranium. There are huge Thorium deposits right now. And LFTR reactors are virtually melt-down proof from the get-go. Where uranium reactors "want" to blow up by default, LFTR reactors are amazingly safe. Watch the link and the other Google Tech Day presentations. LFTR reactors have already been tested and they WORK. The military is responsible for taking us down the dead end of using Uranium for power just because it can be used in weapons. LFTR is better technology and can't be used to make bombs. Thorium CAN be the solution for our total energy needs for the foreseeable future, and will be a great adjunct to renewable energy when something like solar finally emerges. You can build lots of solar cells with safe, cheap, clean LFTR power, and then who cares if solar isn't quite as efficient. It can be used in locations that need it most right away.
Odd; Did a nation attack Austria-Hungary or was there a nation that backed those serbs? Because then, yes, that WOULD make them culpable. Oh wait. No. That did NOT happen. It was Austria-Hungary looking for an excuse. However, I do not think that USA was looking to be attacked by AQ AND to have Afghanistan provide them a base from which to attack from. And my guess is that if AQ EVER attacks USA again (or any other NATO nation) FROM pakistan AND pakistan does not turn over these ppl, then I suspect that NATO WILL go into pakistan as well. As to your last comment, well, there are few nations that America does not get along with. Oddly, I think that if somebody attacked Cuba UNPROVOKED, then we might come to their aid. As it is, we are helping vietnam, and yet, just 35 years ago, we lost a war there. Finally, what occupation of Haiti have we done in the last 50 years? After all, we ARE TALKING RECENT HISTORY, not ANCIENT HISTORY. Or are you trying to say our being in haiti today to help them with the earthquake (along with a number of other nations including China and Cuba) is an occupation?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
... for a moment I thought it said IKEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank.
Glow in the dark swedish meatballs!
Or creating a common market.
All that is is an argument that maybe North Korea needs to be attacked. You do NOT want to say "Well one crazy country got them so fuck it, let's just give them out to the entire world!"
Who knows? Maybe something like this could help stop that. While there's no doubt NK wanted nukes, it came as part of the energy project. So, provide people with the energy in a way they can't use it to make nukes, maybe they aren't able to try. That's the whole point here.
Just because there is a problem doesn't mean you should throw up your hands and say "Screw it, there's a problem so let's just make it much worse."
Did you even read the second sentence about accelerated thorium? Both articles you link to deal with that and similar technologies instead of the fast breeders the above poster was talking about.
What I'm talking about is mostly based on the problems the French civilian nuclear program encountered with their two fast breeders.
To put things simply handling radioactive materials that are far more active than normal fuel is incredibly difficult and expensive and they tend to make other things that are in close proximity to them for long periods of time radioactive as well (that's what strong neutron sources do). Then many of the materials (eg. Uranium) are very strong, hard and have high melting points so it's bloody hard to crunch up the material and separate the stuff you want from the stuff you don't. That's the stuff the French learned from experience.
So while all this was going on other people thought of ways to do it without all that handling. That's where we come to ideas such as some of the thorium designs - eg. having a pool of molten radioactive material and you throw bits of old uranium fuel rod or expired weapon materials in to get more use out of them.
Fast breeders were a complete dead end and things have moved in other directions since then, possibly even before the fast breeder advocates here that read some propaganda from the 1970s were born.
That we should invade and disarm Pakistan?