Facts on Reliable Access to Nuclear Fuel
More and more countries are looking to nuclear energy as a way to preserve existing energy supplies, diversify energy sources, and protect the environment. Many countries also look to nuclear technologies for other peaceful benefits, whether combating the tsetse fly in east Africa, managing clean water sources in the desert, or treating the growing prevalence of cancer in the developing world.
The United States encourages and supports these peaceful uses of nuclear technology as long as the countries pursuing them meet international obligations and international standards regulating safety, security, and nonproliferation. We are working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and countries across the world to bring the many benefits of nuclear technology to all who will use it responsibly. Nuclear power reactors typically run on fuel produced with low enriched uranium.
Unfortunately, the same technology used for uranium enrichment can be abused to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and others have identified this potential for abuse as a "loophole" in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Most countries that have nuclear power today do not enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel. Building uranium enrichment facilities is costly and time-consuming -- not a sound economic choice for most. Advanced countries with sophisticated nuclear programs, such as Sweden and South Korea, enjoy the benefits of nuclear power without uranium enrichment, as do 18 others. They rely on the commercial market, which is diversified and reliable.
To support the expansion of nuclear energy, while reducing the risk of weapons proliferation, the IAEA has been examining how to back up the commercial market with an international mechanism to assure fuel supply.
The goal is to create a viable, cost-effective alternative to investing in expensive enrichment technologies that can be abused to build nuclear bombs.
In June 2007, the Director General produced a report describing a multilateral framework for supply assurances. This framework can accommodate a variety of concepts, from backup supply arrangements administered by the IAEA to actual "fuel banks" of low enriched uranium under IAEA or national control.
The United Kingdom has been working on the concept of enrichment bonds for services at existing European enrichment facilities. Germany has put forward a concept for a multilateral enrichment "sanctuary" under IAEA auspices. Russia is developing a proposal to stockpile and make available to the IAEA two reactor-loads of low enriched uranium at an existing enrichment facility.
The United States, for its part, has begun downblending 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from our defense program to low enriched uranium for a national reserve that will be made available to foreign consumers.
In addition, the United States is pledging $50 million toward establishment of an IAEA international fuel bank, matching $50 million already pledged by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization.
These concepts are complementary and designed to serve a common purpose.
They are not meant to interfere with the commercial market. Rather, they are intended to back up the market, providing an additional layer of security for users of nuclear fuel. Participation would be a voluntary.
No country would be denied NPT rights.
Instead, the purpose is to provide a "viable alternative" to the acquisition of sensitive technologies -- thus helping to fill the NPT's "loophole" -- while assisting countries to meet growing energy needs.
Dr. Javier Solana, the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, recently said:
"In a world where there is increasing interest in nuclear power we need to find ways of assuring countries that they can obtain nuclear fuel without having to do their own enrichment - which is expensive for them and gives rise to proliferation concerns. I strongly support, myself, the ideas for the creation of international fuel supply assurances, perhaps in the form of a fuel bank. That idea has been put forward by many important figures in the international community. There are many good ideas in this area. I believe the time has come to turn those ideas into action."
We agree, and hope that ideas will be turned into action in 2008. At the IAEA General Conference in September 2007, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said:
"We must make progress on reliable fuel service arrangements that provide cost and nonproliferation benefits. In this regard, we welcome the proposals of a number of IAEA member states and the efforts of the IAEA Secretariat to organize alternative supply arrangements and reserves of nuclear fuel. I hope, by the next General Conference [in September 2008], the IAEA is able to make significant progress toward implementing these arrangements."