Radical shift a risk until world agrees on new nuclear rules

There is a case for supplying uranium to India, but only in accordance with a revised globalnon-proliferation regime.

THE Non-Proliferation Treaty is the linchpin of a global regime that has largely succeeded in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons since it came into force 37 years ago. When cabinet’s national security committee met yesterday to consider the sale of uranium to India, one of four non-signatories to the treaty, it was also deciding whether Australia would be part of a radical shift away from a longstanding consensus on non-proliferation. It has come to this point with startling haste. As recently as May, Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane insisted Australia would not sell to a non-signatory, which would also breach the rules of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. “The Australian uranium industry can prosper without India,” he said. This is because demand from the 30 countries now generating 16 per cent of the world’s electricity from 435 nuclear reactors will continue to exceed supply.
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With 36 per cent of the world’s low-cost uranium reserves, this country is in a position to lead the way in non-proliferation, not just follow. If Australia is going to supply the world it has a duty to secure the whole nuclear cycle. It can best do so by accepting the waste for storage, thus ensuring spent fuel is not reprocessed for use in weapons. This “return to supplier” principle is the key to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership set up by Mr Bush in 2005. Few other countries have our uninhabited space and geological stability, and Australia has spent 25 years developing a ceramic product, synroc, to immobilise and store radioactive waste. The Government is ruling that out – even the siting of a store for low-level domestic waste is a political minefield. Yet unless Australia accepts full responsibility for where its uranium ends up, within a new set of agreed global rules, it is hard to see a rush to supply India as anything but a terrible risk.

The Age