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Is an International Nuclear Fuelbank a Good Idea?
An anonymous reader writes "A roundtable at the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences explores the notion of nuclear fuel banks which would offer nations a guaranteed supply of low-enriched uranium if they renounce the right to enrich on their own. From the article: 'The basic idea behind an international fuel bank is that it would, in a reliable and nondiscriminatory way, make emergency supplies of market-priced low-enriched uranium available to states that sign up to participate. States that opt for membership in a fuel bank would gain increased confidence that their access to reactor-grade fuel would not be interrupted. In return, they would renounce the right to enrich uranium and reprocess spent fuel on their own. Such an arrangement could be appropriate for a number of states. But for others, it might be less than ideal.'"
Also, I want to know how they're going to distribute in a "nondiscriminatory" way. The U.N. Security Council nations or NATO or the country/ies supplying the nuclear material are/is going to demand some kind of say in running the fuelbank. There is no way to guarantee there'll be no politics or bias in deciding who will get to fuel distributed to them.
"To stop the terrorists."
And in which country do they plan to enrich and store said nuclear fuelbank?
A big UN marketplace just could not work, because of the reasons uranium trading is going on now
In the same way that you can't have wheat board that just buys all the wheat, and resells it for the same price it paid (give or take)? (e.g. the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Wheat_Board, which survived quite successfully for 77 years until it was shut down for purely political reasons?).
I'm not saying it's going to work, but you certainly could create a controlled market for low enriched uranium overseen by the 'rich reliable' countries who benefit by being the only ones doing the enriching (free money!) and everyone else gets reactor fuel, which means they have power, to you you know, use all the electronics and software that runs on electronics that we want to sell them.
Uranium isn't sold like any other, the problem is enriched uranium, where you can't buy uranium if someone thinks you're going to enrich it. There are some broadly similar problems, pharmaceuticals that can be used for lethal injections for example cannot be sold if they're going to be used for lethal injections. The broad verifiable regulatory framework for uranium belongs with the UN, because no one trusts the Russians (who are claiming to do it for Iran for example), and for everyone else the added transparency elsewhere won't matter. Of course that makes it harder for Russia to supply nuclear weapons supplies to their friends, so it's not likely to go anywhere.
This program is basically designed for Iran. What they are trying to say that if Iran gives up their Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty rights for enrichment, then the US and Israel probably won't bomb them for that reason. And if the US or Israel needs to bomb Iran in the future, it can be done knowing that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons or highly enriched uranium that they can give to their allies. Even better, if Iran starts misbehaving, this fuel can be sanctioned. Finally, if Iran doesn't accept this program, then they must be building nuclear bombs, which gives the US and Israel justification to start bombing.
You forgot to add, that's what the propaganda would like us to believe. Why would a sane nation give over its right to energy independence?
The solution is to give up the right to nuke anybody, so everyone can live with the threat of having ones home converted into a blue ashtray eliminated.
Excellent idea, then we can go back to the good old days of industrialized total warfare! By taking away nuclear weapons you remove the only thing that places limitations on the willingness of nations to use force to meet their political objections. What do you purpose to replace MAD with? History tells us that political/international institutions won't preclude war, recall the League of Nations. Nor will treaties that purport to limit the allowable conduct during war remain effective once the balloon goes up. As a random example, unrestricted submarine warfare was outlawed after WW1, so naturally both sides employed it to maximum effect during WW2.
Mutually assured destruction is the only thing that will prevent war, or at the very least manage it to the extent that it doesn't turn into total warfare. The proxy wars of the Cold War era weren't a lot of fun, but they beat the hell out of out of the alternative of total war between east and west.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Those that sign up, will be at the mercy of the UN (useless nations), bank on it.
Which is to say they will face no restrictions what so ever, and will be free to use the nuclear material for any purpose they want with no fear of anything but a stern "talking to".
Or to put it another way, this "low enrich Uranium fuel bank" idea is to ensure a permanent divide of two classes of nations -
First Class Nations which are allowed to do whatever they like with Nuclear Science - including producing super-enriched-grade Uranium (and all other radioactive materials) and to make all types of nuclear bombs),
... and
Beggar Class Nations which have to rely on the First Class Nations to supply them with the low-grade Uranium, to power their nuclear power plants
Right now, there's already a divide, but the line between them is not clear cut. With this, the line is fixed, and the beggar class nations will forever sign away their right to become self-dependent
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
because, so far, Iran is a wholly independent nation, that hates the US so much that there is no way in hell they'll ever allow a US citizen to roam the country free at anytime, and I'm not even talking about visiting their nuclear enrichment sites As to Israel, they've been secretly building atomic bombs for the last 40 or so years... Considering that Iran will back down on their Nuclear Bomb building project is, at best misguided, from the US / Israel side
For the same reason that America would refuse having Iranians running around in their nuclear facilities?
On the other hand, there are a huge number of nations that are in absolutely no position to have a nuclear programme of their own, for financial or technical reasons. For countries like that, this scheme would give them access to nuclear power, membership of the nuclear club, without them having to renounce anything except for hypothetical things.
I mean, maybe Haiti thinks nuclear power would solve their power needs. Haiti isn't going to be developing enriched uranium reactors independently any time soon, and even if they wanted to they'd meet an impenetrably hostile diplomatic wall. This scheme would be fuel on tap for them, with none of the hassle.