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As Nuclear Energy
Grows, Int’l Cooperation Needed to Lower Proliferation Risks
September
30, 2008 — The United States, Russia and other countries,
as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), should
ensure a reliable supply of nuclear fuel so that countries seeking
nuclear energy have less incentive to build their own facilities
to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, says a new Carnegie
Corporation-funded report by the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences and Russian
Academy of Sciences. Read the news
release.
Such facilities pose proliferation risks because they can also be
used to produce the key ingredients for nuclear weapons.
The international community, supported by the U.S. and Russia, should
continue to explore a broad menu of approaches to provide assurances
against political disruptions of the nuclear fuel supply, an effort
led by the IAEA, the report says.
The report offers other recommendations including that nations stop
accumulating plutonium as soon as practicable, and reprocess spent
fuel only when it is necessary to make new fuel or for safety reasons.
Reprocessing when fuel is not needed in the near-term creates excess
stocks of plutonium, which pose security risks. Read the full
report.
Carnegie Corporation of New York’s supports policy relevant
research at think tanks, research institutions and universities
to advance the further refinement and implementation of steps to
reduce nuclear weapons and their proliferation risks. Read more
about Carnegie Corporation’s nuclear
security work.
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