Abstract
It has been almost three-quarters of a century since scientists developed ways to split atoms, releasing tremendous amounts of energy that were first used for weapons and then harnessed for more productive purposes in society. Most uses of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes pose few risks beyond those of safety and security of using radioactive material but the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity will always pose risks of diversion to nuclear weapons. Countries that seek to develop their own fuel cycle capabilities especially pose a higher risk for nuclear proliferation and efforts to restrict fuel cycle technologies – uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing – rely on agreement among suppliers. Although the agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program is historic in its restriction of fuel cycle activities and material stockpiling, it is unlikely to be a model going forward. Additional challenges may arise if fast reactors are commercialized successfully and countries moving toward plutonium economies. This chapter will demonstrate how trends in the supply of and demand for nuclear energy and fuel cycle capabilities will shape future risks of nuclear proliferation.
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Notes
- 1.
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty contains no prohibition on acquiring the means of producing fissile material for weapons, but rather the manufacture, acquisition or transfer of nuclear weapons, their control, or seeking or receiving any assistance in the manufacturing nuclear weapons. Negotiators realized the line was being drawn fairly high up in a long chain of decisions. The solution in the NPT was to impose an obligation, through comprehensive safeguards agreements, to ensure that all nuclear material in a state was used for peaceful purposes only.
- 2.
In countries that already have nuclear weapons, one can argue that the risk of misuse is low because governments have little incentive to use civilian assets for military purposes, but all nuclear weapon states have historically ignored such boundaries. Even in such states, the risk of unauthorized diversion is not zero.
- 3.
The exception is South Africa, which conducted its nuclear weapons program largely disconnected from the outside world. South Africa is an exception in one other respect: it is the only country to have developed nuclear weapons and then dismantled them and joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.
- 4.
Pyroprocessing, or electrometallurgical processing, separates plutonium from uranium, but not fission products. The resultant material can be used to produce fuel for fast reactors. As such, pyroprocessing is popularly considered by some to be more proliferation-resistant than the PUREX acqueous method of separating spent fuel. Official U.S. policy, at present, treats pyroprocessing as a form of reprocessing. This debate has been at the heart of proliferation concerns regarding South Korea’s desired plans to pursue pyroprocessing as a way to condition its spent light-water reactor fuel to provide fuel for its future sodium fast reactors.
- 5.
The Bush administration prioritized the domestic portion of the GNEP program, which sought to revitalize reprocessing in the United States. This was abandoned by the Obama administration in 2009.
- 6.
This is also true for other fissile materials like U-233, americium and neptunium. The IAEA has officially designated U-233, which is produced when Thorium-232 captures a neutron, as a special fissionable material but has not officially designated americium and neptunium-237 as special fissionable material.
- 7.
The US Department of Energy differentiates between weapons-grade (<7% Pu-240); fuel-grade (7-19% Pu-240) and reactor-grade (>19% Pu-240).
- 8.
Belgium briefly ran the Eurochemic reprocessing plant for 12 other European states from 1966 to 1974.
- 9.
GE-Hitachi decided to back out of the GLE project in 2016 and sought to sell its entire share to SILEX. Cameco and SILEX are now poised to jointly own (49/51 split) GLE, with the purchase price only being paid to GLE after the project surpasses its first $50M in revenues.
- 10.
Note that this number does not include scores of commercial power reactors in Japan that are not yet back in operation.
- 11.
Even though India was granted an exemption from NSG rules that require NPT membership for nuclear trade, transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technology are still off-limits because of tighter restrictions.
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Squassoni, S. (2020). The Dark Side of Nuclear Energy: Risks of Proliferation from Domestic Fuel Cycle Technologies. In: Martellini, M., Trapp, R. (eds) 21st Century Prometheus. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28285-1_3
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