Obama seeks global uranium fuel bank

As part of a new strategy to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, President Obama plans to seek the creation of the first-ever international supply of uranium that would allow nations to obtain fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but limit the capacity to make bombs, according to senior administration officials.

Many arms-control specialists consider the idea of a “fuel bank” controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency a key way to test the sincerity of Iranian leaders, who maintain that their enrichment program is only for civilian use and necessary because they cannot be assured of energy supplies from other countries.
The basic idea is to have a relatively small, but guaranteed supply of low-enriched uranium available as a backup should a country’s supplies of civilian nuclear fuel from other nations be cut off for political or other reasons. Of the dozen or so countries that now can enrich uranium, several – such as Brazil and South Africa – do so to guard against such disruptions, not to build nuclear weapons.

Boston Globe