USA positive on international fuel banks

Friday, 9 February 2007 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has applauded moves by a congressman to introduce a bill that would give $50 million towards IAEA schemes to establish a nuclear fuel bank.

The bill, the International Nuclear Fuel for Peace and Nonproliferation Act, will soon be introduced to congress by Tom Lantos, a veteran Democrat from California.

Following the lead of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Lantos' act would put $50 million to support a scheme to create an internationally-run nuclear fuel bank, which would supply low-enriched uranium fuel to any country maintaining a good non-proliferation record.

Condoleezza Rice spoke about global non-proliferation issues while defending her department's budget request for financial year 2008 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is chaired by Lantos. She said his was "a very positive idea."

She said that President George Bush has "talked about the need to have ways for countries to pursue civil nuclear without having a fuel cycle because enrichment and reprocessing can be used for nuclear weapons and there's a proliferation risk."

"But we want countries to have access to civilian nuclear power, and so breaking that link between the fuel cycle and having civil nuclear power through some kind of fuel bank, we think, would be a very good idea."

Lantos' bill would be the latest in a series of moves from the USA to internationalize the nuclear fuel cycle. The main thrust of policy is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which would see the nuclear fuel cycles active only in trusted 'fuel cycle states' while any other country that has satisfied international standards of material safeguards could employ proliferation-resistant reactors on their soil.

The USA has also committed 17.4 tonnes of surplus high-enriched uranium from weapons stocks to be blended down to form the initial balance of a domestically-held nuclear fuel bank. That material is estimated to have a net value of $500 million.

In addition, a further $50 million was pledged toward IAEA fuel bank goals by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) at a special session of the IAEA general conference in Vienna in late 2006. Both the NTI money and that promised by Lantos' bill would be conditional on significant donations from other parties.

Further information

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
International Atomic Energy Agency
Nuclear Threat Initiative

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