A Fresh Look at the Proliferation Dangers of Nuclear Energy

1
A Fresh Look at the Proliferation Dangers of
Nuclear Energy

• Henry Sokolski
• The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
• www.npec-web.org
• March 7, 2007
• 50 Years of Euratom
• An European Parliament Conference Sponsored by
  The Greens, the European Free Alliance, and the
  Heinrich Boll Foundation
• Brussels, Belgium

2
Current Proliferation Seems Manageable
3
Future Proliferation Ramp Up to Nuclear 1914?
4
Weapons States and States that Recently Had
Weapons or Covert Efforts and Still Have Reactors

• Russia
• China
• US
• UK
• France
• India
• Pakistan
• Israel
• North Korea

• South Africa
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Ukraine
• RoK
• Taiwan
• Australia
• Serbia
• Algeria?
• Can make nuclear fuel

5
A Busy Year 12 States Announce Peaceful
Nuclear Programs in 2006

• Jordan (US)
• Tunisia
• Indonesia
• Nigeria
• Vietnam (Russia)
• Bangladesh

• Turkey (US)
• Egypt (China, US)
• Australia (US)
• S. Arabia (aka. GCC)
• Yemen
• Morocco

6
Plutonium from Power Reactors Can Be Nearly As
Good As Weapons Grade
7
Simple, Quick Reprocessing Plant Designed to Make
As Many as 20 Bombs a Month (Ferguson-Culler)
10-day startup, 1 bombs-worth-a-day production
rate
8
Use of Fresh LWR Fuel Can Reduce Size of
Enrichment Effort by 1/5th

• Enrichment capacity of about 90 tons SW/yr can
  fuel a standard LWR
• Assumes 20 tons/yr of LEU fuel (3.6 U-235)
• Operate enrichment plant on natural U feed (0.71
  U-235) with 0.3 U-235 tails and
• The same plant reconfigured could produce nearly
  500 kg of 90 U-235, say 20 bombs worth
• A much smaller plant20 tons SW/yrcould produce
  the 500 kg/yr by starting with LEU feed
• Assumes 1.4 tails and about 20 tons LEU feed, or
  about one reload
• A 4 ton SW/yr plant (perhaps 1000 early
  generation machines) could produce 100 kg/yr HEU,
  say five bombs worth
• --for calculation details see
  http//www.urenco.de/trennarbeit/swucal_e.html

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But Dont IAEA Safeguards Adequately Detect Fuel
Rod Diversions?

• From 1999 through 2005 the IAEA learned of camera
  blackouts that lasted for more than 30 hours
  on 12 separate occasions.
• These discoveries made only after 90-day-required
  camera downloaded. Under planned Integrated
  Safeguards, this interval is to be expanded to
  12 months.
• US State Dept. officials requested NPEC
  self-censor 2 scenarios for spent fuel rod
  diversions that could evade IAEA detection.
  Similar scenarios, it turns out, were described
  elsewhere on the web.
• Near-real time surveillance is now in place for
  roughly 30 of IAEA-inspected facilities but none
  of these are in suspect countries

10
Another Headache More Nuclear Fuel Making
Plants in More Places

• Plutonium reprocessing and uranium
• enrichment plants and the fuels they can
  Resende
• make can be quickly converted to make bombs
• Yet Brazil and Iran are starting up new enrich-
• ment plants at Resende and Natanz
  Natanz
• US planning new reprocessing/recycling plants it
  will place
• Under IAEA safeguards
• Japan is starting up a large reprocessing plant
• at Rokkashommura Rokkashomura
• India is planning to increase reprocessing, MOX
• and fast breeding in the coming decade and is
  expanding its
• Enrichment capacity
  
• Pakistan plans to expand its enrichment
• plant at Kahuta for military civil purposes
  Kahuta
• and is building an additional reprocessing plant
  

11
Pu, HEU, MoX Nuclear Fuels What the IAEA
Concedes It Cant Safeguard
12
ElBaradei 2004 Statement to the IAEA Board of
Governors

• . . . if they have the required fissile material
  HEU or plutonium we are relying primarily on
  the continued good intentions of these countries,
  intentions which are in turn based on their sense
  of security or insecurity, and could therefore be
  subject to rapid change. Clearly, the margin of
  security this affords is thin, and worrisome.

13
Falling Behind IAEA Safeguards Spending vs.
Mounting Weapons Usable Material Stockpiles

• From 1984 to IAEA safeguards spending roughly
  doubled 105 m in constant 04 dollars.
• Amounts of HEU and separated Pu, meanwhile grew
  nearly 10-fold, enough now to make 12,000 to
  21,000 crude nuclear weapons

14
Not All Trends Favor Nuclear Expansion

• Reactor capital costs are much higher (up to 3
  times more) than alternatives (IAEA Report on
  Multilateral Fuel Cycles 05).
• The IAEA says the world already has enough
  enrichment capacity to supply reactors for next
  10 to 20 years (idem.).
• Reactor decommission is likely to remain as high
  as the costs to build one (UK 2006 Energy
  Review).
• Nuclear liability, financing will continue to
  demand government backing that is at least as
  generous as current levels (idem).
• Uncertainties regarding modes of electricity
  generation, demand, storage, and distribution are
  likely to grow.
• High capital costs will discourage large reactor
  projects that for emerging nations relatively
  smaller grids to handle.
• Enhancing efficiencies is more leveraged to
  reduce carbon emissions (by factors of 3 to 7)
  than investments in nuclear or its alternatives.

15
Even With Major, New Builds i.e., Nearly 400
More Reactors Nuclear Power May Only Stay
Roughly Even Through 2045
16
An Untried Approach Open Energy Market
Competition

• No additional government fuel-specific
  subsidies, sunset those that exist
• Any new subsidies would be fuel neutral e.g.,
  for increased energy security, carbon abatement,
  increased efficiencies
• Open, competitive international bidding on
  large electrical projects
• full costs of each energy type must be
  internalized in the price
• enforcement e.g., penalties for fuel-specific
  subsidies -- within a trade zones covering as
  much of the world as possible

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Legal-Institutional Support for these Ideas

• British Energy Review June 2006
• EU concern about Finlands nuclear subsidies
• 1994 Convention on Sustainable Energy
• EU Emissions Trading Scheme
• Australasian Emissions Trading Forum
• Chicago Climate Exchange
• California emissions cap law

18
External Nuclear Energy Costs Yet to Be Fully
Internalized

• More effective international safeguards (need
  user fee for each nuclear operator)
• More effective physical security against
  terrorism, air attack, and theft especially at
  nuclear fuel making plants (the later should be
  guarded as nuclear weapons are)
• Elimination of government nuclear-specific
  subsidies for insurance (e.g., liability caps),
  financing, export-import bank loans, guaranteed
  loans, and of nuclear-specific tax credits
• Assumption by nuclear operators of more of the
  costs of spent fuel management (i.e., of dry cask
  storage on site)
• Lack of a Stacking order in which the least
  risky technologies are given preference both in
  making power and nuclear fuel

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Conclusion The Bomb (and Its Ingredients) Need
Not Spread If We

• Continue to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons
  for security
• Toughen enforcement of the nuclear rules so that
  the right to the benefits of peaceful nuclear
  energy are no longer seen as a per se right to
  money-losing activities that bring states to the
  brink of having bombs
• Establish a more open market competition for
  future electrical production with less
  fuel-specific subsidies for any specific fuel
  type

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Additional Backup Slides
21
Plausibility of Small, Clandestine LWR
Reprocessing

• World-wide access to technology since 1950s,
  sub-commercial operating plants
• India was reprocessing in the 1960s
• North Korea in 1980s
• Experts dont seem to think cutting up LWR fuel
  bundles is a big obstacle
• Small commercial PUREX design for LWR
  reprocessing
• Phillips Petroleum late 1950 design for
  reprocessing spent fuel from small LWR
• Detailed design, no cutting corners
• Main building about 65 ft x 65 ft
• Proliferation-related Lab studies for quick and
  dirty reprocessing
• Oak Ridge 1977 Ferguson-Culler memorandum
• Claimed operation six months from construction
  start output of 5 kg Pu/day
• Some doubt about details but Oak Ridge team could
  probably do it
• Main building about 130 feet long
• Livermore 1995
• can be separated from spent fuel with modest
  facilities and equipment
• Sandia 1996
• a relatively simple process that might be
  operated by an adversarial group in makeshift or
  temporary facilities

22
U.S. Views NPT As Iran and DPRK Do

• One of the things that Iran has illustrated to
  us is that there is a major loophole in the
  nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty NPT. The
  loophole is one whereby countries, under the
  guise of a civil program, can develop the
  wherewithal for nuclear weapons. US Ambassador
  to IAEA, June 7, 2006
• Allowing enrichment and reprocessing is widely
  recognized as the most significant loophole in
  the NPT Under Secretary of State for AC and
  IS, 9/08/05
• Iran, while retaining its right to enrichment
  and reprocessing, would, nonetheless, find it in
  its interest to give up that right in terms of
  its own territory Presidents National Security
  Advisor 11/18/05

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Where Are We Headed Assuming the Rules Are Read
This Way?

• The regime will not be sustainable if scores
  more States Develop the most sensitive phases of
  the fuel cycle and are equipped with the
  technology to produce nuclear weapons on short
  notice and, of course, each individual State
  which does this only will leave others to feel
  that they must do the same. This would increase
  all of the risks of nuclear accident, of
  trafficking, of terrorist use, and of use by
  states themselves. The Secretary General of
  the United Nations, NPT Review Conference, May 2,
  2005

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An Unqualified NPT Right to the Entire Fuel
Cycle ?

• NPT aim as stated in a 1965 General Assembly
  resolution GA Res. 2028 (XX) Nov. 19, 1965) was
  to write a treaty void of loop-holes which might
  permit nuclear or non-nuclear Power to
  proliferate, directly or indirectly, nuclear
  weapons in any form
• Enrichment and reprocessing not mentioned in the
  NPT text
• Spanish, Mexican NPT proposals to make sharing
  the entire technology of reactors and fuels a
  duty explicitly rejected in 1967.
• Swedish NPT negotiators interest in setting
  forth criteria against nuclear fuel making.
• Inalienable to peaceful nuclear energy only
  available if exercised in conformity with the
  NPTs other prohibitions
• The benefits of peaceful nuclear energy like
  the benefits of peaceful nuclear explosives
  cannot be shared if they dont exist
• Standard legal practice favors tight construction
  if it gives meaning to more of a contract than
  would otherwise be the case.