BBC Visits A Proposed Location For An International Nuclear Fuel Bank
A friend shared a link on Twitter to a BBC article and video titled International nuclear bank – helping world peace?. The article discusses the long history of the proposals to establish a fuel bank that can be placed in territory under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency as a means of reassuring countries that they will have access to fuel if they decide to invest in building nuclear power plants.
The idea behind the concept is that this reassurance would dissuade countries from investing in a complete nuclear fuel cycle that includes enrichment or recycling capacity because the view of the world is that those technologies represent too much risk of nuclear weapons capability. In fact, in some people’s minds, an announcement of interest in either one of those technologies by a country that they do not like is tantamount to a declaration of an intention to produce weapons. People who cannot understand the desire for fuel cycle independence overlook the history of efforts by the world powers to control internal decisions and actions by using economic sanctions that can make extremely large investments virtually worthless. (What good is an aircraft without spare parts or a power plant without fuel?)
By establishing a bank with an inventory of already enriched fuel – at a level far below that required for nuclear weapons – the international community would be assuring countries that no one would try to control their internal decisions by threatening to withhold fuel deliveries. It is a reasonable idea that has a lot of international backing and the interest of some philanthropic organizations that want to allow access to the benefits of nuclear energy with less risk of nuclear weapons.
One final thought to keep in mind when you follow the link to the BBC article/video. Pay attention to the size of the space is where the BBC reporter is talking. The article calls it a “cavernous” warehouse, but it is only cavernous in the sense that a high school gymnasium is “cavernous”. That space could warehouse enough fuel to power several entire countries for a couple of years – that is one more illustration of why nuclear energy is such disruptive technology.
Just imagine the size of the storage space required if the fuel that we needed to warehouse was coal, oil or natural gas!
It might not, however, be completely straightforward. The truth is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself is in serious jeopardy, with no effective alternative in sight. Non weapon states are exasperated with the refusal of nuclear powers to take their 1968 commitments seriously. Several developing countries are suspicious that the fuel bank could be a first step towards removing their sovereign rights over nuclear fuel production. The leading objectors are Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Argentina. These guys carry a lot of weight in the G20, many of whom are not that impressed with this whole idea, and would be happy to see it dropped.
I think that the international fuel bank is a great idea to get politics and nationalism out of the nuclear fuel cycle and run it on a purely scientific and technical basis. The issue is that everyone has to agree to join – including the weapons states.
Proliferation is no concern to the peaceful development and expansion of nuclear power – this is because proliferation has a very, very distinct signature and smell that can easily be distinguished from that of a purely peaceful program. All of the proliferating nations have been well known to have been engaged in proliferation prior to their public revelation (or non-revelation, in the case of Israel) of their sought capabilities.
States that choose not to proliferate won’t proliferate. States that choose to proliferate will proliferate. The issue is preventing states from making the choice to proliferate. It’s often a lot easier to reduce demand for something than it is to reduce supply of something, reducing demand for weapons, rather than reducing the supply of nuclear energy technology. We cannot do that; to survive, civilization needs nuclear power.
Further, it must be noted that no proliferating nation used a power-generating nuclear reactor to do their initial proliferation.
Do people here think proliferation is worthy of worrying about? Do you think it can be prevented or it is worth preventing?
I am opposed to an international fuel bank. We don’t need one world government. I believe in the United States, not the United Nations, in free enterprise, not Obama socialism, in nuclear energy, not twirling fan blades and shiny mirrors.
We need to keep the United States sovereign, and we need to return to the Christian Foundation that the Founding fathers of this Republic established. I don’t give a hoot what the secualr atheist humanists in Europe do. We need to return to being one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all (inlcuding the unborn).
No more liberals. No more Democrats. No more commie pinko internationalists.
Our Christian forebears? Hmm. Thomas Jefferson, our founder, par excellence, such a very well known Christian. I forget what his denomination was. Oh, that’s right. He was a deist. He even did a rather irreligious translation of the Bible – removing the supernatural cruft and focusing on the teachings of Jesus rather than miracles and gods and demons and flying spaghetti monsters. (The Jefferson Bible – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_bible). And then there was Ben Franklin, a charter member of the “Hellfire Club”, mocking anything and everything religious.
Oh, sure, they all belonged nominally to churches, but that was expected of them at the time; they were the children of Reason, not of superstition. They were the first liberals, and Jefferson founded the Democratic party. He was a commie pinko internationalist, too, hanging out with all of those French revolutionaries, I suppose.
As for the usual whining about abortion, well, let me remind you what all you right-wingers say while talking about “welfare queens”, etc. “If you can’t feed’em, don’t breed’em”, right? Well, I suppose all of those pregnant women out there getting abortions are just taking your advice – and saving your tax dollars! Isn’t that such a great thing – you get lower taxes, while you can get fired up about the immorality of all the oocytes sent to the great petri dish in the sky! Your taxes don’t have to go to pay for more welfare babies – and you can get the faithful zealous about A-BORTION! It’s the best of both worlds, right?
Republicans…Constitutional rights begin at conception and end at live birth!
Your party is a dying species – all that remains to be done is for the undertaker to come along and bury its putrid corpse – the corpse of war, intolerance, zealotry, bigotry, hypocrisy, and total and complete failure.
Now, don’t you have some orphans to go and kick, or perhaps a Constitution to burn?