Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And in which country do they plan to enrich and store said nuclear fuelbank?
As a species, we get together (good luck on that) and relinquish uranium and plutonium for any use on planet, and instead create a thorium based nuclear economy. Take all the uranium and plutonium and use it to build and power cities on the Moon and Mars. The cities on Moon can then beam collected solar energy back to earth in the form of microwave, collected by a network of geosynchronous satellites. Anyone who agrees to using Thorium now get's a share of the solar power coming from the moon so they have abundant Nuclear power now. Abundant Solar power later, and the threat of global thermonuclear war is eliminated (at least until the folks on Mars decide to nuke earth for holding back on the cream puff shipment or whatever.)
The problem is simple. People claim to want clean, unlimited power. They don't. They want bombs. They want to make certain that if you nuke them, they can nuke you back. 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. Sadly there is a certain amount of trust required for this to work, and nations with good sources of yellow cake need to trade these for free thorium technology. Its really simple. Society is sick and we can either cure or perish from the illness together.
Iran is being fully monitored by the IAEA and the IAEA continues to confirm absolutely no diversion of any Iranian nuclear material to any weapons-related program.
There is absolutely ZERO evidence that Iran is doing anything not permitted by the NPT. There is almost zero evidence that they have EVER done anything not permitted by the NPT.
The sole reason for suspecting Iran had a nuclear weapons program was, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency position (which did not make it into the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate, but is undoubtedly correct), when Iran was concerned that Saddam Hussein had one. Apparently the Ayatollah Khamenei authorized a "feasibility study" to see what Iran would need to do to develop a nuclear weapon if Iraq did. Iran was unconcerned about both Israel's nuclear arsenal and the US nuclear arsenal, because they knew those arsenals were "constrained" by international consensus. Saddam's was not.
Once the US destroyed Iraq in 2003, Iran clearly no longer needed even a feasibility program and that is why, as all the intelligence agencies agree, Iran stopped its program in 2003.
For facts about Iran's nuclear program and the real reasons that the US, NATO and Israel are pressuring Iran, follow the following Web sites:
www.raceforiran.com
www.asiatimes.com
www.antiwar.com
www.campaigniran.org
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
And they are fully justified in requiring at least some of the processing being done on Iranian soil.
Several NATO countries have reneged on nuclear technology deals over the past thirty years, mostly as a result of US pressure.
Russia itself delayed and delayed the Bushehr project for various reasons.
When the Tehran Research Reactor came up for re-supplying in 2009, the US and NATO refused to supply fuel on the open market as is REQUIRED by the NPT. This lead to negotiations in fall of 2009 which resulted in an ultimatum to Iran to ship out all of its low-enriched uranium stock in exchange for the TRR fuel - WITHOUT any guarantee that Iran would actually get that fuel. Iran naturally refused this offer and made a counteroffer to exchange the LEU at the time of delivery of the TRR fuel, with the LEU being held in Turkey or elsewhere under IAEA seal. The US refused.
So Iran went ahead and began enriching to 20% to produce the TRR fuel itself in January or February of 2010.
Then Brazil and Turkey tried to make a deal with Iran similar to the deal it offered in November/December of 2009. Obama wrote a letter to the Brazilian President outlining the details of a deal the US would accept. The Brazilians and Turks got the deal with Iran. The US then refused the deal under the spurious notion that since Iran's stockpile of LEU had gotten bigger in the meantime that the deal was no longer acceptable.
Iran has every reason to distrust the US because it is clear from the behavior of the US over the years that it has no serious interest in negotiating a genuine resolution of the issue. The nuclear issue is merely an excuse being used by the US to justify extreme sanctions and an upcoming military attack on Iran. The real reasons for this process is the US and Israeli desire for hegemony in the Middle East. Iran (and to a lesser degree Syria which is why Syria is in trouble now) is the only country in the Middle East not beholden to the US for foreign aid, weapons and security. The US and Israel will not rest until Iran, Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon are "brought to heel."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
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.
Guaranteed by whom? What are they offering up as collateral; their firstborn sons? Yeah right. Why would any sane nation accept (i.e. Iran) such a proposal?
Well, any sane nation with a viable enrichment program might be a hard sell(which is an issue, since those are the customers that they actually want); but if I were Benevolent President for Life by the Unanimous and Wholly Uncoerced Assent of the People of some backwater hellhole or other, I could easily imagine that it might make decent economic sense to set up the cheapest, nastiest, scariest-looking bunch of fleabay-sourced enrichment apparatus that I could knock together, and then oh-so-magnanimously agree to halt the project in exchange for cheap, premade nuclear fuel and perhaps a little bit of 'development aid' for my fourth-best palace...
They want to build nuclear weapons.
Bingo. Iran has already been caught enriching uranium far beyond what is necessary for power plant fuel. They have already been offered a guaranteed supply of fuel from a consortium of countries, including both the USA and Russia, but they have turned it down because they would have to agree to inspections. They are not worried about fuel, they want to build weapons. This proposal would solve nothing, because it is not addressing an actual problem.
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 !
Well, the best way would be to get the spent fuel back, and check the amounts. U-238 could be put near the reacting material like with neutron activation testing, but I don't believe that any remotely usable P-239 could be recovered that way (hence why reactors that produce plutonium have to be specially designed). It might be possible (I'm not an expert) to produce dirty bombs by heavily neutron activating a ton of stuff, but a dirty bomb is a far cry from a nuke, and it would be a very slow process. The main problem would be finding a place to keep the spent fuel, as nobody wants to have to keep the stuff.
Dirty bombs don't work except to freak out a gullible uneducated populace. The US Army checked this out decades ago, found there was nothing there, and went on to other things. Doesn't stop the media in the US from hyping it up,though. Gotta sell those advertising slots in the evening news somehow ya know.
Seriously, though, there is no way this 'fuel bank' won't get politicized, and no way the US will stand still and let it be placed anywhere but the US. And if they get built in the US, what corporation is going to run them, for 'the good of mankind', of course, as long as it's profitable as hell. They want something viable, start getting into thorium reactors. At least stockpiling thorium has a chance of working. 'No pourmouthing, El Presidente For Life, how much uranium do you really have?' could become a thing of the past. And since thorium is non-weaponiseable, there'd be no problem for Iran to build thorium reactors for power plants. Win/win in my opinion.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
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.