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.'"

Comments

Energy Dependence is tricky at best

[BMOC]

What you would essentially be asking states to do is give up energy independence. It's a nice idea if you strongly trust every other nation in the world. The trouble is, even most allied nations these days harbor low-level suspicion of each other. That is to say nothing of all the ongoing conflicts and near-conflicts that exist. We're still living in a time of independent nation states that look after their own interests and try to avoid getting too pissed off at each other, so compulsory use of a central fuel repository is asking a lot of your average nation.

Re:Energy Dependence is tricky at best

[Sir_Sri]

except that they're already dependent on someone for the uranium. That's the issue. Canada, australia, Russia, Niger, Namibia, Kazakhistan are the big net exporters, with south africa, communist china, the US, germany/czech republic, romania all have some mines, or at least reserves, but unless you're one of the big 5 (for want of a better phrase), you're at their mercy to actually get the uranium.

Which leads to say, Iran, South Africa or Japan (or others, such as india, brazil, israel, the UK, France etc.). They all want nuclear power (or at least might want it), have no domestic source of the uranium, and they rely on someone to sell it to them. If the US vigorously objects to Iran getting uranium of any sort them well, they can't even have a civilian nuclear power programme, if china and north korea and russia make enough of a stink the same could happen to Japan and South korea. The Israeli's bank on being able to get their supplies from the US, and the US can always buy from Canada or australia, so they're safe, but everyone else that has a legitimate need for civilian nuclear power has a tough time saying 'I'm only interested in civilian nuclear power, but that other guy really just wants bombs".

If you're talking about oil then sure, I agree, oil is in total worth so much money, and many of the producers so small that they can be forced into particular spheres of influence and the controllers of those spheres have no real vested interest in giving them up. Uranium is basically worthless in terms of total dollar value, 50 000 tonnes a year at $132k/tonne = 6.6 billion dollars a year as total worldwide production. Worldwide oil production is about 8 billion dollars per day.

It's not like the people at question are energy independent with nuclear power now, this is about finding a way to expand that market so that lots more people can get access to supply without (further) threatening the security of the world with more nuclear bombs. Obviously it's sort of an absurd proposition, if north korea can build nuclear weapons anyone can, but it's an honest effort.

Re:Energy Dependence is tricky at best

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Won't work

[icebike]

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".

This probably amounts to a promise of refueling from the original reactor manufacturer, because most of these are one-off designs or made
to specifications such that fuel rods can only be manufactured by one source. So realistically, you only have one country you have to remain
on good terms with, and that is the country that supplied your reactor. Even if there was a fuel bank, they are not likely to be trusted with any
significant amount of fuel, and would simply serve as an intermediary to process orders.
So if you piss off the country that made your reactor the chances are you still would get no fuel, unless you could go to the UN and have
them deliver a vicious tongue lashing to the country withholding the rods.