More Nations Back U.S. Nuclear Project

A U.S.-initiated project that aims to reduce the dangers of nuclear proliferation and control radioactive waste gained support Sunday, as 11 more nations signed on with original members Russia, China, France and Japan.

Under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a limited number of countries including the U.S. and Russia would provide uranium fuel to other nations for powering reactors to generate electricity, and then retrieve the fuel for reprocessing. This would deprive those nations of their own nuclear fuel enrichment programs, which can be used to make atomic arms.
It is fears that indigenous enrichment programs like Iran’s could be misused for weapons that have led to attempts to create global fuel banks, guaranteeing supplies of energy-capable enriched uranium.

Such plans could indirectly hasten the nuclear arms race, however, by encouraging countries to start or revive past programs before any global plan is in place.

Already, Argentina and South Africa have said they plan to revive enrichment activities, while Australia plans to start from scratch. While no one suggests they want a weapons program, their examples could embolden other nations in less stable regions.

Additionally, critics of the initiative say resuming reprocessing — or recycling spent fuel to gain new fuel, a process the U.S. abandoned in the 1970s over proliferation concerns — can make it easier for terrorists or enemy states to obtain weapons-usable plutonium. And although the program envisions reprocessing through a technique where pure plutonium is not separated, that technology is commonly said to be decades away.

But senior U.S. officials played down concerns.

AP