IAEA Welcomes U.S. Funds for Nuclear Fuel Bank

The International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday recognized a $50 million U.S. contribution to support an international nuclear fuel repository (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2007).

President George W. Bush signed the congressional budget allocation on Dec. 26, matching a previous $50 million donation by the Nuclear Threat Initiative to the IAEA project.

An international repository could provide fuel for nuclear power plants, helping to discourage developing nations from building domestic nuclear fuel production facilities that could also be used to manufacture nuclear-weapon materials.

“I have long been advocating the establishment of assurance of supply mechanisms in view of increasing demand for nuclear power and to strengthen nonproliferation,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.

“At the core of such mechanisms will be a fuel bank of last resort, under IAEA auspices,” he said.  “Such a bank would operate on the basis of apolitical and nondiscriminatory nonproliferation criteria, and I welcome the recent action by the U.S. Congress as a positive step in this regard.

Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the pledge marked a new step toward establishing an international nuclear fuel system.

“An IAEA-controlled fuel bank is essential to reducing global nuclear dangers because the same nuclear enrichment technology that is used to make nuclear reactor fuel can also be used to make material for a nuclear weapon,” Nunn said in a statement.  “The law signed (on Dec. 26) is an important step forward to help prevent the spread of this nuclear technology to dozens of countries around the world and can be used to help release NTI’s $50 million contribution to a fuel bank.”

The NTI money, provided by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is contingent upon the project receiving an additional $100 million from nations.  The U.S. contribution meets half that requirement.

Along with the NTI plan, IAEA officials are considering several proposals for establishing a reliable nuclear power fuel source.

Russia has offered a plan to set up an enrichment site at the country’s Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Complex, which is already producing low-enriched uranium.

Germany has suggested setting up a multilateral enrichment plant financed by international buyers dependent on the nuclear fuel to generate electricity.  Under the German proposal, a country would donate land where the U.N. nuclear watchdog would create an independent territory for enriching uranium (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Jan. 8).

[Editor’s Note: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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