Science Policy

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International Cooperation Needed to Lower Proliferation Risks as Nuclear Energy Grows As more nations pursue nuclear power, the United States and Russia, along with other countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), should redouble efforts to ensure a reliable supply of nuclear fuel so that countries seeking nuclear energy have less incentive to build their own facilities to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, according to a report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences. Such facilities pose proliferation risks because they can also be used to produce the key ingredients for nuclear weapons. Driven by growing energy demands, high prices for fossil fuels, and concern about climate change, more than two dozen nations—Egypt, Vietnam, Belarus, the Gulf States, and Turkey, among others—have announced that they are considering or planning their first nuclear power plants. The fuel for these plants is fabricated from enriched uranium, which can be purchased from outside suppliers—currently, two international consortia, Russia and the United States. However, some countries may fear that relying on others could make them vulnerable to a cutoff of supplies for political reasons. The report draws upon discussions from an international workshop convened by the academies at the IAEA, involving 10 countries that might participate in a system to assure reliable supplies of fuel. The international community, supported by the United States and Russia, should continue to explore a broad menu of approaches to provide assurances against political disruptions of the nuclear fuel supply, an effort led by the IAEA, the report said. Over time, Russia, the United States, and other countries should work to create a global system of a small number of international centers to handle sensitive steps of the fuel cycle, such as enrichment and management of spent fuel, possibly including reprocessing, storage, and disposal. Russia has created one such center, the International Uranium Enrichment Center at Angarsk. The centers could either be owned by groups of nations—as with two existing consortia—or overseen by an international organization. Aside from the countries that provide technology for the fuel cycle centers, participating nations should meet two major criteria: They should not have an enrichment facility or be developing one, and they should be in compliance with IAEA safeguards and nonproliferation agreements. 1140

International institutions that manage the nuclear fuel cycle and arrangements that let many countries share in the profits of uranium enrichment provide a more equitable and sustainable long-term basis for limiting enrichment and reprocessing to a small number of countries, the report said. And nations may feel assured of a stable fuel supply if they are part-owners of the fuel centers, or if international mechanisms are in place to provide back-up supplies. The chief disadvantage of international centers is the potential for sensitive technology or knowledge