Category Archives: International Fuel Bank

U.S. Global Nuclear Leadership Through Export-Driven Engagement

Posted on September 27, 2012 by pbowersox| 1 Comment

By Art Wharton

The latest American Nuclear Society board-approved Position Statement (PS83) is titled “U.S. Global Nuclear Leadership Through Export-Driven Engagement.” This statement highlights a paradigm shift that is occurring within ANS, as global macroeconomic issues force the recognition that clean energy is imperative for continued global development.

It’s logical that ANS would want U.S. nuclear technology to dominate the global market; but the position statement does not come from a market-driven angle—it is noted as a non-proliferation measure. This may seem paradoxical at first, but I ask the audience: Would you rather the U.S. nuclear energy industry influence the world’s developing countries as they inevitably build their nuclear infrastructure? Or would you prefer the influence of the nuclear energy industry of another country, which might not enforce and teach the same level of rigor in operational excellence, human performance, and design for non-proliferation?

ANS is now taking the stance that nuclear energy is not only a valuable source of domestic stability, but also an international security imperative. As developing countries begin taking advantage of nuclear energy as a clean energy source (this is already well underway and accelerating), the United States will be looked toward for its technology leadership in nuclear energy.

1-2-3 Agreements

For bilateral nuclear trade agreements (known as 1-2-3 Agreements), it is imperative that the 1-2-3s be negotiated in a way that assures safety, but does not necessarily demand that a sovereign nation give up its sovereignty (such as automatically requiring that a country never “enrich” uranium to the very low levels required for use as nuclear fuel). The origination of the ANS position statement was a U.S. House of Representatives bill proposed to essentially enact a “gold standard” in 1-2-3 agreements, after the United Arab Emirates had agreed to forego its right to enrich uranium as an anti-proliferation measure. Since we know that these types of requirements are not being placed on agreements among other countries, such a requirement would place the United States in an uncompetitive stance, left to watch from the sidelines as the international nuclear trade landscape develops. Logically, ANS would like to see American technology leading the way to a cleaner and safer energized world.

The exportation of peaceful nuclear technology is highly valuable to developing nations. Historically, countries that developed nuclear energy technology actually developed nuclear weapons first, before they realized how much more valuable nuclear technology is for peaceful purposes. Why not help developing countries skip that first step?

U.S. nuclear technology is designed with anti-proliferation in mind as part of global security policy, so the exportation of U.S. nuclear energy technology as a market leader serves as a security imperative, to ensure that peaceful and nonproliferative technology is used dominantly throughout the world. I ask again: Would you rather see a developing country install U.S. technology under the guidance and influence of the United States? Or, would you rather see a developing country buy from someone else?

Influence and control

This is actually an area where Position Statement 83 may bring a little discomfort to the people in the nonproliferation community. It contains an undertone of influence, rather than control, over the expansion of nuclear science and technology in the international community. When I was a very young boy, my parents were able to control me; indeed, it was their responsibility to control me as I was raised. But something weird happened as I grew up into my teen years: I gained a sense of sovereignty. I could think for myself, act for myself, and I was pretty sure I knew more than them anyway, as most teenagers do. I wasn’t completely grown up yet, but the game had changed. My parents could no longer expect the ability to control me, but needed to still influence me to grow into a productive member of society (Craig Piercy, the Washington, D.C. representative for ANS, tells of this paradigm shift with pictures of his children as they grew up—it’s personally compelling and relatable).

In a global society where the United States out-spends everyone else on national defense (and shall we say, international defense), there yet comes a time when even the immense capability of the U.S. Armed Forces cannot effectively control the global community—but the positive example of the U.S. nuclear energy industry, its exemplary safety record, and its operational excellence can serve as a beacon of influence as it exports its technology.

This is why the United States must be the market leader in the exportation of peaceful nuclear technology. But I’m not done.

Poverty and risk

One of the (some might say, naïve) dreams that I had roughly a decade ago as I was working on my undergraduate degree was the dream that I could forge a career selling and building nuclear power plants in developing nations—as part of a larger global effort to bring people out of poverty. “U.S. Global Nuclear Leadership Through Export-Driven Engagement” could help that dream come alive.

World Bank research indicates that besides the opening of new markets and increasing global wealth creation, security is the other imperative to reduce world poverty, and vice-versa. A “rich” person has a lot more to lose if they go to war or otherwise commit acts of violence. What has a poor person to lose by taking such large risks? In a world where only about 1/6th of the population lives on more than $5 of purchasing power per day, the opportunities are endless for improving global security hand-in-hand with global economic activity. Peaceful nuclear science and technology applications can be a significant piece of the puzzle—with the United States leading the way through a high level of engagement in exports.

***

Disclosure: I have a deep personal interest in the topic of exporting nuclear technology, which influenced my choice of employment at the finest nuclear technology company on the planet; however, all opinions contained above are my own opinions, and do not necessarily represent the opinions, positions, or strategies of Westinghouse Electric Company LLC or any of its subsidiaries or parent companies, or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

_____________________

Wharton

Art Wharton is a principal project engineer at Westinghouse Electric Company LLC in Nuclear Power Plants Business & Project Development. He is a member of the ANS Planning Committee, ANS Public Policy Committee, the ANS Operations and Power Division Program Committee, is the Treasurer of the ANS Operations and Power Division, is the Pittsburgh ANS Local Section Past Chair, a Trustee on the Board of Pittsburgh’s Urban Pathways Charter School, and is a guest contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Export Control, International Fuel Bank, News, Nuclear Energy Narrative, nuclear technology, position statements

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Revisiting Reprocessing in South Korea

Posted on August 2, 2012 by dyurman| 9 Comments

The U.S. doesn’t want to hear about it

By Dan Yurman

The Cold War is over and North Korea has another nut job for a political leader, this time it is an untested youth still shy of his 30th birthday. Claims by the United States that South Korea must not pursue uranium enrichment and reprocessing because of the unpredictability of its northern neighbor are getting little traction in Seoul these days. The reason is that South Korea is a major user and exporter of civilian nuclear energy. It wants energy security and to recover the energy value in a growing inventory of spent fuel from its reactors.

According to World Nuclear News, South Korea is now a major nuclear energy country. It won a $20-billion contract to supply four nuclear reactors to the United Arab Emirates. Within the past two months, the UAE nuclear safety agency approved a license for the first unit and construction is underway at a remote site on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Three more South Korean reactors will be built there by 2020.

Today, 23 reactors provide one-third of South Korea’s electricity from 20.7 GWe of plant. The government says it intends to provide 59 percent of electricity from 40 units by 2030.

Nuclear energy remains a strategic priority for South Korea, and capacity is planned to increase by 56 percent to 27.3 GWe by 2020, and then to 43 GWe by 2030.

Revising a 40 year old treaty

Comes now the request by the South Korean government, first aired in October 2010, to revise the bilateral cooperation treaty with the U.S. It has been in place for more than 40 years and it is a cornerstone of U.S./South Korean diplomatic relations.

Many specialists in the field of nonproliferation see a “hard and fast” policy against any expansion of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing as a key to stopping states like North Korea from pursuing these activities. That strategy hasn’t worked and, as a result, South Korea wants relief from the restriction in the now-decades-old treaty.

Negotiations over changes to the treaty have been going on since last December, but appear to be stalemated around a key set of issues. It is a delicate dance, as diplomats like to say, because if the U.S. leans too heavily on South Korea, it could sour relations between the two countries and spawn nationalist sentiment that might lead to a nuclear weapons program. Since the 1950s, South Korea has depended on the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a shield against aggression from its neighbor to the north.

Spent fuel with no place to put it?

But South Korea doesn’t appear to want its own weapons. Instead, what it has told the U.S. is that it wants to reprocess fuel from its growing commercial fleet and to create fuel for new reactors. The country has more than 10,000 tonnes of spent fuel stored at its civilian reactors. It is producing 700 tonnes per year of spent fuel and expects to run out of space by 2016. A geologic repository in the densely populated country seems out of the question.

The trouble is that the current treaty inked in 1972 allows South Korea to import nuclear reactor technology in return for a ban on enrichment and reprocessing. South Korea’s first commercial nuclear reactor entered revenue service in 1978 and the latest in 2012.

The big issue on the reprocessing side is what will be done with the plutonium extracted from the spent fuel. U.S. nonproliferation experts claim that its mere presence in South Korea, regardless of international controls and inspections, will inflame relations with North Korea. South Korean government officials call this reasoning nonsense, since North Korea has already been producing plutonium and has its own uranium enrichment capabilities.

Gary Samore, Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism

The current position of the U.S. government, as expressed by its chief negotiator Gary Samore, is that it does not want to change the treaty.

Instead, the U.S. wants South Korea to continue to get its nuclear fuel from France or the U.S. The country gets up to 30 percent per year of its nuclear fuel from the U.S. and the rest from France.

What’s good for the goose?

For its part, South Korea calls this position hypocritical, pointing out that Japan enriches uranium and reprocesses spent fuel. Even more to this point, South Korea says that the U.S., for strategic reasons, supported India’s request to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group even though India conducted nuclear weapons tests in 1974 and 1988. In short, South Korea is not buying what it calls a “double standard” from the U.S.

In response, U.S. diplomats have let slip to South Korean news media that they harbor a “deep distrust” of South Korea’s intentions due to a clandestine weapons effort that briefly operated in the 1970s under then President Park Jung-hee.

A face-saving plan offered in principle by the U.S. is for South Korea to adopt a so-called “proliferation resistant” technology for reprocessing fuel called pyroprocessing. The method does not initially separate plutonium in a way that allows it to be refined for use in a nuclear weapon. The U.S. has offered South Korea financial assistance to conduct tests on the technology. Critics call this a diplomatic fig leaf, saying that eventually weapons grade material could be extracted if the country really wants it.

For South Korea, the objectives for change are clear. What the U.S. will need are iron clad agreements that the South Korean government will never pursue “nuclear sovereignty,” and agree to international oversight and inspections.

Even with these measures, U.S. diplomats see enrichment and reprocessing in South Korea as “incentives” for North Korea to increase its investment in nuclear weapons. Nonproliferation experts remain divided about whether or not limiting South Korea’s access to enrichment and reprocessing will have any useful effect on its neighbor to the north.

Samore says that the U.S. hopes to ink a new treaty by 2014. He’s got his work cut out for him.

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Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in International Fuel Bank, News, Nonproliferation, Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing

ANS adopts position statement on U.S. global nuclear leadership through export-driven engagement

Posted on July 2, 2012 by lscheele| 1 Comment

On Thursday, June 28, the American Nuclear Society’s Board of Directors formally adopted a position statement entitled U.S. Global Nuclear Leadership through Export-Driven Engagement. ANS position statements reflect the Society’s perspectives on issues of public interest that involve various aspects of nuclear science and technology. The text of the June 2012 position statement is below, and the full list of ANS positions statements can be accessed via the ANS website by clicking HERE.

U.S. Global Nuclear Leadership Through
Export-Driven Engagement

June 2012

ANS believes the U.S. should remain committed to facilitating an expansion of the peaceful use of nuclear energy through the export of U.S. nuclear goods and services.  Exports of nuclear technology provide the U.S. with important nonproliferation advantages, including consent rights on U.S. manufactured nuclear fuel, the ability to control the transfer of nuclear technology, and greater influence in the nuclear policies of U.S. partner nations. The U.S. possesses a strong nuclear technology portfolio and supply chain. The federal government should be an active partner in helping U.S. industry maintain and increase its market share of nuclear goods and services, as U.S. nuclear exports have the attendant benefits of improving global standards of nuclear safety and security and minimizing the risk of proliferation.

ANS believes that the U.S. should work with organizations such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology and that a competitive global market for fuel cycle services strongly discourages the spread of ENR technology.  Reasonable assurance of access to fuel and other services needed to operate their nuclear plants can dissuade nations from domestic development and deployment of ENR technology.

The U.S. is one of several nations that are capable of supporting the development of nuclear technology in emerging markets.  Those nations are aggressively promoting their nuclear technology with bilateral nuclear trade agreements that generally do not contain ENR prohibitions.  Many U.S. partner nations are unlikely to forswear their right to pursue ENR technologies, even if they have no intention to develop them.  Any U.S. insistence that its bilateral nuclear trade agreements ban development of indigenous ENR technologies would be counterproductive to its nonproliferation goals and put U.S. technologies at a competitive disadvantage.

In short, a U.S. nuclear export regime that restricts rather than promotes U.S. nuclear trade will ultimately reduce U.S. influence in shaping the safety and security norms of the global nuclear landscape.

In order to enhance U.S. nonproliferation goals through its export policies, ANS recommends that the U.S. government should:

  1. maintain a flexible approach for negotiating bilateral nuclear trade agreements (also known as 123 Agreements);
  2. continue developing a coordinated approach to promoting U.S. technology to other nations; and
  3. ensure U.S. nuclear export policies and procedures are transparent and responsive to the needs of  the U.S. nuclear industry.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, International Fuel Bank, Meetings, Nonproliferation, position statements, Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing

31st Carnival of Nuclear Energy blogs

Posted on December 11, 2010 by ansnuclearcafe| 1 Comment

This is the weekly Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers with contributions from the leading pro-nuclear blogs in North America.

The blog posts here are selected by the bloggers themselves as the best posts for the past week.

If you are looking for the voice of the nuclear renaissance, you will find it here.

Nuclear Summit draws a high-level crowd

We have two reports of the meeting held in Washington, D.C., last week on the future of the nuclear renaissance in the United States. There has been some doubt of late, with suggestions that it is slipping back into the dark ages.

At Atomic Insights, Rod Adams says it ain’t so Joe. He writes that it was encouraging to hear a group of serious and committed people talking candidly about the potential for atomic energy to contribute substantially to a cleaner and more secure energy production system and that does not sacrifice the reliability that Americans assume almost as a birthright.

A number of the speakers were quite clear in their judgment that wind and solar energy were not adequate replacements for fossil fuel. Overcoming obstacles in the path of successfully building new nuclear power plants, however, is still going to require steady, sustained effort

At Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman writes that one would think that such a gathering would be catnip for the media. He point outs, however, that the New York Times reported, in one of its blogs, that the meeting was long on high-level talk about the obvious and short on innovative solutions . . . “there were few truly new ideas or even new laments.”

In a telephone interview published at Idaho Samizdat, John Grossenbacher, director of the Idaho National Laboratory, who facilitated discussions during the summit, praised Energy Secretary Chu for focusing on three key areas.

  • Developing public/private partnerships to build reactors
  • Finding ways to assure financing and certainty in the marketplace for utilities and investors
  • Rebuilding America’s nuclear energy infrastructure to manufacture components

Grossenbacher

Grossenbacher noted, “If you just let market forces drive energy policy, you will get natural gas plants being built as long as it is plentiful and cheap, but it may not always be that way.”

The Idaho lab co-sponsored the event with Third Way, a DC-based think tank.

Solar vs. nuclear

At Next Big Future, Brain Wang digs into levelized costs per kilowatt for solar, wind, nuclear, and fossil energy. He turns over piles of energy statistics that show that nuclear as a non-carbon energy source is very cost effective.

“My summation of energy price comparison information is from the OECD, DOE, and California Energy, “ Wang noted.

For nuclear, $43-54 /MWH for the main Asian (China and South Korea) countries that are building most of the new reactors (10 percent discount rate) and $68/MWH for Russia.

New nuclear build in South Korea and China and Russia is very cheap. That is where most of the reactors (nuclear and other new power) will be built. China will also build almost twice as much hydro from 2010-2020 (almost 200 GWe of hydro and a lot of coal).

IAEA fuel bank

Warren Buffett

At Cool Hand Nuke we learn that America’s best known philanthropist billionaire, Warren Buffett, (right) has given $50 million to launch the IAEA fuel bank. It will help nations peacefully develop nuclear energy

The fuel bank will be administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Buffett told the NY Times that he made the contribution because “the spread of nuclear weapons of incredible destructive capability is the No. 1 problem facing mankind.”

Buffett made the $50-million commitment in September 2006, contingent on the IAEA receiving an additional $100 million in funding to jump-start the fuel bank, a condition that was met in 2009 when Kuwait donated $10 million to put the total over the goal.

Other backers of the fuel bank include the United.States, the European Union, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates. Total funding for the fuel bank is now at $157 million, enough to buy the first fuel load for a new nuclear reactor, about 60-80 tons of uranium.

Nonproliferation experts say that the implementation of a fuel bank creates opportunities for nations to develop nuclear energy without the threat of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear export controls mired in red tape

Kadak (Photo: Donna Coveney)

At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Andrew Kadak, a nuclear energy expert and MIT-based scientist, writes that having recently attended a Pillsbury and Nuclear Energy Institute seminar on “Export Controls for the Nuclear Renaissance,” it became clear to him why the United States is losing its leadership position in nuclear energy:  The bureaucracy is winning the war over effectiveness of policy and nonproliferation.

It is a familiar story in Washington, but Kadak has some ideas on how to fix things. Check it out.

Shumlin’s inconsistent energy policy

At Yes Vermont Yankee, Meredith Angwin writes that in terms of renewables, Governor-elect Shumlin loves geothermal heating and doesn’t like biomass.  Does he know that geothermal heating is really earth-based heat pump heating? In other words, geothermal heating is electrical heating, the kind of heat that depends on Vermont Yankee.

Wind farm footprints

Speaking of inconsistencies, Gail Marcus writes at Nuke Power Talk that “talk” about the footprint of wind farms misses important measures of access roads, transmission lines, and other mechanisms and facilities that make them work.

Adjusting for the generation per acre makes nuclear reactors much more land efficient—up to about a factor of 10 or more, depending on which end of the stated range is used for each.

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Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, China, Department of Energy, Export Control, IAEA, International Fuel Bank, Nuclear Fuel Cycle

UAE Ambassador to IAEA pursues development of nuclear energy

Posted on November 17, 2010 by ansnuclearcafe| 2 Comments

Hamad Al Kaabi is a nuclear engineer

By Dan Yurman

In December 2009, the United Arab Emirates awarded a $20 billion contract to a consortium of South Korean firms to build four nuclear reactors on a remote desert location along the Persian Gulf. The consortium, led by state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), is committed to having the first reactor in revenue service by 2017. The change from fossil (natural gas) to uranium as a fuel source comes not a moment too soon as the UAE is now a net importer of gas for electricity generation and desalinization.

UAE Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi at ANS Winter Meeting, Las Vegas, Nev. (Photo by Fritz Schneider, Clark Communications - 11/09/10)

At the ANS Winter meeting, which took place in Las Vegas, Nev., on November 7-11, I had the opportunity to interview one of the key players in the UAE’s nuclear program. Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi (right) is the UAE Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. He has been personally involved in key milestones of the country’s nuclear energy assessment, including:

  • A national scope energy assessment evaluating future UAE requirements and potential sources of electricity.
  • Drafting and release of the policy of the UAE on the evaluation and potential development of nuclear energy.
  • National nuclear energy legislation.
  • Bilateral agreements related to cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between the UAE and various nuclear supplier nations, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Korea.
  • The UAE pledge of $10 million to support an IAEA-administered international uranium fuel bank initiative, resulting from a proposal by the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Ambassador Al Kaabi trained as a nuclear engineer, getting his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Purdue University in Indiana in the United States. His graduate work focused on nuclear safety.

Background of UAE nuclear deal

In 2006, a UAE energy working group developed projections for electricity needs. It found that demand would expand by three times the current level of use by 2020. The question was how to meet demand.

The UAE evaluated all energy sources including oil, gas, renewables, and nuclear. The working group found that natural gas supplies are not sufficient for future needs. The UAE imports a growing portion of its natural gas supplies. The UAE cannot get more nor produce more since the gas supply is driven by oil production, which is under quota. (see table below)

Natural Gas Supplies
in the United Arab Emirates

Natural Gas Supply Categories

 Billions of
cubic meters
Production

50.24

Consumption

59.42

Imports

16.75

Exports

7.57

Source: CIA World FactBook 2009 data

In addition, the gas has a high sulfur content, which along with burning oil, yields poor environmental performance, and burning oil is a hit on revenues from oil exports. In a nutshell, increased emphasis on fossil fuels had the potential for increased environmental and financial costs that were not acceptable to the UAE.

New technology for desalinization

Desalinization will be supported by nuclear energy. Currently, the UAE is using natural gas to heat seawater and remove fresh water from the process. The UAE will use electricity from the new reactors to run a reverse osmosis plant. While the technology is complicated, recent innovations make it a feasible choice to use on a large scale.

Smaller reverse osmosis units can be placed closer to end users, e.g., factories and cities, thus reducing water pipeline and delivery costs.

“We can make water at night when electricity demand is low,” Al Kaabi said.

Solar not the answer to gas use

Despite abundant sunshine, Al Kaabi said that renewable energy sources are not the answer to the challenges of using fossil fuels.

“Even aggressive investment in renewable energy like solar will yield only a small amount of electricity to meet rapidly growing demand. It is not proven that solar can meet base load requirements,” Al Kaabi said.

He added that the UAE has had some problems with manufacturing issues regarding solar panels delivered to the UAE and problems with dust from the desert cutting down on the efficiency of solar cells.

Nuclear chosen for reliability and capacity to meet demand

Ultimately, nuclear energy was chosen for the energy path forward because it is a proven, reliable technology that is economically competitive.

The UAE set three broad principles for the path forward for nuclear energy:

  • Safety
  • Security
  • Nonproliferation

The UAE held early consultations with the IAEA to develop a “roadmap” for legislative, institutional, regulatory, and technical organizations. In setting up these organizations, the UAE reviewed best practices globally. Due to the urgency of energy issues, the UAE set 2017 as a target date for start of revenue service for the first reactor.

The next issue was site selection. The UAE chose an uninhabited coastal location on the Persian Gulf. The Braka site is about 50 km (31 miles) from the center of Abu Dhabi’s oil industry at Rawis. A port facility will be developed to receive reactor components and construction materials by sea.

The two most important organizations in the UAE new build are the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), which has 100 employees, and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), which has 300 employees. These employment numbers are expected to grow.

ENEC will manage the construction and operation of the reactors. It will handle all aspects of the supply chain. FANR will handle nuclear safety. A separate government ministry handles security for nuclear facilities.

Another organization is developing a program to educate and certify nuclear engineers in the UAE. The UAE will need them all by 2017.

Of the nation’s three million people in the labor force, more than 80 percent are expatriates. The UAE has a goal of educating its own citizens to run the nuclear plants. The reason is that the reactors offer high paying jobs with long-term stability.

Key factors in the contract award

In December 2009, UAE awarded a $20 billion contract to build four 1400 MW PWR type reactors to a consortium from South Korea. Key factors were a buildable design, procurement and construction of components, and lifetime operability. The tender process was completed in a record time of one year.

Al Kaabi said South Korea will provide the first fuel load, but future fuel contracts will be bid as part of the normal procurement process for any nuclear utility.

Training new nuclear engineers and plant personnel was a key success factor for the winning award. The UAE is working hard to promote science technology engineering and math education so that eventually it will have young people entering the nuclear field. Mentoring and certification has a strong emphasis. Until the UAE fully develops its own educational programs, it is sending the first groups of future nuclear engineers to South Korea for training.

1-2-3 agreement with the U.S.

A hallmark of the UAE nuclear program is that it has set as a national policy under which it will not develop uranium enrichment nor spent fuel reprocessing facilities. Because of this policy, a 1-2-3 agreement with the U.S. sailed through Congressional review.  It allows U.S. firms to export nuclear technologies to the UAE.  The UAE policy is a model for the Middle East. This is the heart of Al Kaabi’s message to other countries considering development of nuclear energy.

“No country has done what the UAE has done on enrichment and reprocessing. It is a major milestone in nonproliferation. It is a reflection of UAE policy. We are the first country to achieve such a level of transparency,” he said.

“Our experience could be used as a template for other countries,” he added. “This approach to nonproliferation is the right way to do things. We hope other countries will see the full international support for our approach and adopt them it as well.”

While the ambassador never mentioned Iran directly in his remarks, his comments could be interpreted to include that country. Efforts by the United States and European Union countries to restart negotiations over Iran’s uranium enrichment program are off to a rocky start. Meanwhile, the fourth round of sanctions is having an impact on that nation’s economy.

The UAE new build is one of the fastest moving nuclear energy programs on the planet after China. Other countries will be following the UAE’s progress with interest to take home lessons learned from their experience.

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Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy. He is a contributing reporter for Fuel Cycle Week and a frequent writer on the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Export Control, IAEA, International Fuel Bank, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Science & Engineering Education, Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing

Iran’s commercial reactor is not the problem

Posted on November 3, 2010 by ansnuclearcafe| Comments Off

Getting the government to give up its uranium enrichment program is the key issue

By Dan Yurman

Iran started this month inserting 163 fuel assemblies into a Russian built 1000 MW VVER light water reactor located at Bushehr on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast. In a few months, technicians will withdraw controls rods to start the process of operating the reactor and making electricity.

VVER fuel assembly - source: TVEL

The fuel is enriched to approximately 4.6 percent. Russia has agreed to supply the fuel for the reactor for the next 10 years and to take it back. Many nonproliferation experts say that this arrangement ensures that the reactor will not be able to support development of nuclear weapons.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Jerusalem Post on October 26,”The United States does not see Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor as a threat.”

“Our problem is not with their reactor at Bushehr, our problem is with their facilities at places like Natanz and their secret facility at Qom and other places where we believe they are conducting their weapons program,” Clinton said.

Mike Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISIS) in London told Reuters on October 26, “Fueling Bushehr should not be seen as an act of defiance.”

“Nobody has asked them to stop on Bushehr. I think it is a big mistake to equate these two issues. The fact that they haven’t responded to Catherine Ashton [the European Union diplomat] is an important nonproliferation issue, ” Fitzpatrick said.

History and development of Bushehr

Iran began building the Bushehr reactor in 1975. It was one of two planned units. Work on both units ground to a halt during the 1979 revolution. Russian picked up the pieces on one of the reactors 16 years later.

Progress at Bushehr has been delayed repeatedly by disputes between Iran’s mercurial and fragmented government and Russia’s industrial export engine that runs on hard currency. At one point, work stopped when Iran made a progress payment in euros and the Russians demanded dollars.

The VVER reactor is a conventional light water design widely used in Russia and eastern Europe. The Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy notes that the Russian Federation continues to build VVER units. The VVER reactor is not the same design as the one that was destroyed at Chernobyl. The Russians have a huge image problem that any Russian-built unit may inherit from the disaster at Chernobyl-4, an RBMK water-cooled graphite-moderated reactor. The Russians are not building any more RBMKs, although several remain in service.

The new VVER units conform to international standards and have developed an export market. The new VVER design has an estimated operational life of at least 30 years. Russia is building one for India with plans for several more, and it recently inked a deal to build two for Vietnam.

Reactor’s success undermines Iran’s need for enrichment services

Ivan Oelrich, (right) a Senior Fellow for the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), talked on October 26 with this blog about the Bushehr reactor. His primary point is that the plant will not take Iran any closer to building a nuclear weapon.

Ivan Oelrich

“In fact, it may help stop an Iranian bomb and establish good practices for the rest of the Middle East,” he said.

“The Russian guarantee of reliable fuel services actually undermines Iran’s claim it needs its uranium enrichment plants. The fact that the Russians will take back the spent fuel, under IAEA inspections to prevent diversions, makes it impossible to extract the plutonium from the fuel,” Oelrich said.

It is not an additional danger, Oelrich said. “The Russians are in effect leasing the fuel. Once the fuel is back in Russia, it’s their problem, not Iran’s.”

Oelrich said he is “cautiously optimistic that Iran will agree to talks in Europe about its uranium enrichment program.

“Iran will want to re-engage with the European Union. The sanctions are impacting the regime a lot worse than they expected.”

His confidence was well placed. On October 29, the New York Times reported that Iran said it is ready to return to talks about its uranium enrichment program. Analysts point to the deep impacts of the fourth round of sanctions on the nation’s oil and gas industry.

There’s another point, and it goes to the reasons that Iran started its uranium enrichment work in the first place. Oelrich says that Iran isn’t getting the political benefits it expected from the enrichment program. Instead of being seen as a prestigious leader in the Middle East, the regime has become a destabilizing pariah. Internally, shortages of specialty items for the oil fields and difficulties with banking and trade have undermined the regime’s justification for the program.

Oelrich says that a real blow to Iran’s view of their ability to withstand the sanctions was China’s vote for them in the U.N. Security Council last June. These sanctions impact Iran’s banking system, air cargo, and shipping industries that stop the flow of critical equipment for the country’s oil and gas industries.

Since China is a major customer, and is also the country closest to Iran in the U.N. Security Council, Iran may have felt confident about how it would vote. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Shanghai the day China voted in New York for the new round of sanctions. The vote in the U.N. was a wakeup call for him and the Iranian government.

The scope of Iran’s enrichment program

Uranium enrichment centrifuges

Iran has been enriching its uranium at Natanz to 20 percent, but what alarms the U.S., Israel, and other countries is the route from 20 percent to 90 percent high enriched uranium (HEU) to make a bomb. Iran claims it is enriching to 20 percent to support a medical isotope reactor.

In May 2010, the IAEA said that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make two atomic bombs. The U.N. Security Council sees Iran’s duplicitous communications with the IAEA as evidence that it is engaged in building a bomb. According to the New York Times on May 31, 2010:

“‘The toughly worded report says that Iran has expanded work at one of its nuclear sites. It also describes, step by step, how inspectors have been denied access to a series of facilities, and how Iran has refused to answer inspectors’ questions on a variety of activities, including what the agency called the ‘possible existence’ of ‘activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.’”

Oelrich says that having 20 percent uranium is one thing, but having 90 percent HEU is entirely another. He thinks that Iran doesn’t have enough 90 percent HEU to make even one bomb, much less two, and that it lacks other types of bomb-making know-how.

An underground test is out of the question, as one would be readily detected and would create an entirely different crisis for Iran in its relationship with the rest of the world. As for Iran’s missile program, Oelrich says that his assessment is that Iran is a long way from being able to package a bomb for use on an intermediate range ballistic missile.

What does the West want from Iran?

European Union negotiations will be influenced by Iran's complex trade relationships

Regardless of how much bomb material Iran has, a new agreement may be difficult to achieve. According to an October 27 report in the New York Times, a new agreement would require Iran to send an increase of about two-thirds from the amount required under a tentative deal offered in Vienna a year ago.

Iran stalled on implementation and then walked away. The reason for the increase is that Iran has been making more enriched uranium since it broke off talks a year ago. Even as Iran rejected that deal, it continued its uranium enrichment program.

The Wall Street Journal reported on October 27 that the IAEA now estimates that Iran has an inventory of 2800 kilograms (6200 lbs), compared with a stockpile of 1800 kilograms (4000 lbs) in September 2009. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. diplomats want to expand the original fuel-swap deal to remove more of the enriched uranium.

Instead of 1200 kilograms discussed last year, Iran would need to agree to secure at least 50 percent more, or 1800 kilograms, at another country such as Turkey. Nuclear experts say that this would keep Iran’s inventory below the level that could sustain development of a working bomb. Iran would not be able to retrieve the uranium without IAEA consent.

The Times also reported that the Obama administration will demand that Iran halt all production of nuclear fuel that it is currently enriching to 20 percent. That would cut off the path to HEU, which at 90 percent U-235 is bomb material.

Can Iran cut a deal?

Iran's political climate is a mosaic of factions

It isn’t clear that Iran has the political will to make such an agreement. The country lacks a cohesive leadership structure complicated by theocratic politics. There is dissent among conservatives and domestic opposition that has been brutally suppressed by the Revolutionary Guards since the June 2009 elections.

Iran’s hard liners might again stop an agreement and tough it out. The lack of a united front at home, however, may be seen as an opportunity by some Iranian leaders as a rationale to stop enrichment, which would lift the sanctions.

The U.S. and the European Union have to convince Iran that the sanctions will put more of a dent in the nation’s economic life and that things could get a lot worse. By the time you read this blog post, the ground may shift again. The agenda for the negotiations, which are set to start on November 10, hasn’t been set, and Iran has already sent conflicting messages about what it is willing to put on the table.

Will Iran change or will it be more of the same?

Iran may yet twist, turn, and delay the negotiations in an attempt to delay an agreement.

The fourth round of sanctions have hit hard. However, China’s vote for them was a signature change in the political landscape further isolating the Iranian regime on a global scale. Still, it remains unclear whether Iran will respond in a rational manner.

So far signals from Iran do not bear out western optimism.  Reuters reported November 2 Iran’s envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency scoffed at a U.S. position that Tehran would have to agree to tougher conditions than those it rejected last summer.

“I’m afraid there is no logic for these kind of statements,” Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Reuters when asked about a U.S. media report that Iran would be required to part with some two metric tons of its uranium stockpile under a revised proposal.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a highly placed European Union diplomat says Iran is unlikely to come to terms over its nuclear program.

Since the imposition of the latest sanctions, over the summer, “the whole question has been, ‘Is that going to create a new political situation?’” the diplomat told a group of reporters. “We haven’t seen anything yet.”

Future posts on this blog will attempt to follow the negotiations and seek to answer the “so what” questions that emerge from the blizzard of news media reports.

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Dan Yurman is the publisher of Idaho Samizdat, a blog on nuclear energy. He is a contributing reporter for Fuel Cycle Week and a frequent contributor to the ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in International Fuel Bank, Iran uranium enrichment, Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Will the nuclear fuel bank open for business?

Posted on October 6, 2010 by ansnuclearcafe| Comments Off

Financing may dry up if nations don’t act soon

By Dan Yurman

On September 20, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu brought a suitcase full of  carrots and sticks to the annual meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Getting his luggage through airport security and customs was easy. The hard part is getting the other nations of the world to listen to reason. The main issue at hand is the establishment of an international fuel bank for commercial nuclear reactors.

The main carrot is $50 million the United States has pledged to set up a nuclear fuel bank so that other nations that want civilian nuclear energy don’t have to build uranium enrichment plants. This is an important step in controlling dual-use technology that can also be used to make weapons grade materials. If the IAEA doesn’t get off the dime and set up the fuel bank soon, the U.S. will withdraw the pledge.

Chu said the United States is pledging to provide a third of the initial resources needed for the fuel bank.

“We have also contributed $50 million to the IAEA to support an international fuel bank administered by the Agency. Taken together with pledges from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and other Member States, $150 million has been pledged for this purpose.”

The main stick, the Global Security Newswire (GSN) reported, is that offers of funding for a proposed civilian nuclear fuel bank “will disappear” if the IAEA doesn’t “move quickly” to set one up. Chu wants the IAEA to make up its mind, and soon, and stop dithering over different ideas about how to organize the fuel bank. This will be difficult. The IAEA has 151 member states, and 35 of them sit on its board, which is chaired this year by Pakistan.

According to GSN, the heart of the multi-nation fuel bank proposal is to spend the $150 million to acquire up to 80 tons of low-enriched uranium (3-5 percent U-235) that would give the IAEA-sponsored fuel bank the ability to distribute the fuel at market rates to as many as 60 countries. So far, Chu said, the United States has blended down 17.4 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to LEU to support the fuel assurance program.  This is just over one-fifth of the total amount of LEU needed to supply the fuel bank.

IAEA needs to make a decision

The 35-nation board of the IAEA is expected to take up the fuel bank decision in December. The board, which is divided by the interests of its member nations, has spent several years analyzing different alternatives for the fuel bank. Chu told the group it is time to fish or cut bait.

“This offer has been extended several times and presents member states with an excellent opportunity to realize one of the founding objectives of the IAEA. These resources will be at risk if we do not reach a decision soon. It is now time to move beyond general discussion and debate of fuel bank principles.”

The board has already considered a proposal from Russia to establish a fuel bank at Angarsk in Siberia. Under this plan, Russia would set up a commercial uranium enrichment operation with international safeguards.

It isn’t clear if the IAEA took seriously the risk of losing the pledged funding if it can’t reach a consensus on a plan. IAEA Director Yukia Amano said that more diplomatic meetings were necessary for the agency to make up its mind.

If wishes were fishes, Secretary Chu would be knee deep in flounder.  The response from the IAEA wasn’t the one he wanted, but it was all he is going to get, at least for now. The IAEA has until the end of 2010 to come to an agreement to deploy the fuel bank.

Poking Iran with a diplomatic stick

Chu’s comments came as part of a major speech he made to the IAEA delegates on September 21. It included more carrots and sticks, with a lot of them intended to get Iran’s attention. Chu said that an IAEA report issued in September “outlined how Iran refuses to cooperate” with the IAEA.

He said that countries that do not adhere to their safeguards commitments “will face real and timely consequences.”

While Iran was a specific target in Chu’s speech, he also put his comments in an international perspective.

“No nation has a monopoly on nuclear power, and no nation alone can manage its inherent risks.”

Setting an international nuclear agenda

Chu’s speech then got down to business with a substantive description of its four main themes:

•    Peaceful use of nuclear energy
•    Nonproliferation & international safeguards
•    Disarmament
•    Keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists

  • Nuclear energy

The U.S. objective is for countries to have assured supplies of nuclear fuel at market rates. The United States has only one truly commercial producer (USEC NYSE:USU) of commercial fuel. Urenco’s new enrichment plant, in Eunice, N.M., is operated through its U.S. subsidiary. It follows that an international fuel bank would be an agreement predominately among state-owned firms.

  • Nonproliferation

The Department of Energy has started an effort called the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative to identify technology gaps and solutions, train new experts, and develop new approaches to improve international safeguards. The project was announced just days before Chu spoke in Vienna.

  • Disarmament

In April, the United States and Russia signed a landmark new START Treaty that reduces deployed nuclear warheads by one-third and strategic delivery vehicles by one half. On September 16, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty by a vote of 14-4.

A Senate floor vote was not scheduled because the Democratic leadership felt it didn’t have the votes. Congress has since gone home for the November elections, which puts the vote into the hands of a lame duck Congress in December.

  • Nuclear Security

The objective is to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials globally within four years. So far, the United States has removed HEU from 18 countries. The U.S. is providing technical assistance to other nations with physical protection measures for storage and transportation systems.  Guidance is also being distributed through the IAEA.

Tooting the White House horn

Chu got a chance to take credit for the Obama administration’s positive steps to support nuclear energy.

“At home, the United States has secured loan guarantees for new nuclear power and fuel facility construction, established a Blue Ribbon Commission to develop recommendations for the long-term management and disposition of used fuel and high-level waste, and committed to a robust, science-based nuclear research and development effort.”

The Obama administration has rebranded the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), calling it the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC). While it doesn’t make a snappy acronym, the DOE is moving ahead with a broader international scope for the program.

The DOE will provide advice and international mechanisms on infrastructure development and fuel services for nations developing and expanding their civilian nuclear energy programs.

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Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy. He is a contributing reporter for Fuel Cycle Week covering uranium mining in the U.S. and Canada.

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Posted in Department of Energy, International Fuel Bank, Nuclear Fuel Cycle