In August it was confirmed that Kazakhstan would act as host and operator of a new uranium reserve bank, known as the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Reserve Bank. The bank’s stated aim is to act as a lender of last resort, should any country that imports its enriched uranium encounter any disruption in market supply. According to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) it will be “owned and controlled by the IAEA… and act as a supplier of last resort for member states in case the supply of LEU to a nuclear power plant is disrupted due to exceptional circumstances, and the member state is unable to secure LEU from the commercial market or by any other means”.
A multi-national effort, funding is coming in from all over the world. Warren Buffet, through his Nuclear Threat Initiative has himself committed $50m of the total $150m cost. The US has committed a further $49m, alongside $28m from the EU (including a pledge of up to $6m for security), while the UAE and Kuwait have pledged $10m each and Norway $5m.
The technology centrifuge required to enrich uranium to peaceful LEU is not far from that needed to create HEU, which can be turned into a nuclear weapon
Plutonic purpose
The bank itself will hold 90 tonnes of LEU in its reserve for IAEA members in good standing to draw from in times of market disruption. This is enough to power a large-sized city for roughly three years – a rather small amount as far as world usage of LEU goes. This however, raises a number of questions behind the reason for this project. Firstly, uranium is an incredibly abundant resource, with reserves throughout the world (see Fig. 1), and where large deposits have existed, increased exploration has resulted in the discovery of more reserves. As The Economist noted, “no reactors have ever been shut down because of a lack of fuel”.
Rather, it is the low enriched uranium that is open for sale that it will supposedly be a reserve for. Low enriched uranium is the result of the process by which uranium is made usable in nuclear power plants to provide energy. LEU is enriched to around 20 percent and is not able to be weaponised. High-grade uranium, usually around 80 percent enriched, is the material required for the creation of a nuclear bomb. Currently, the countries able to enrich uranium are Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and the US. It is from these states in which a country that has nuclear facilities but not centrifuges would purchase LEU.
As the name suggests, the bank will supply countries with LEU for use in their nuclear facilities, should they be able to purchase it on the open market from these countries. Yet the idea of any country being completely excluded from accessing LEU from all of these seems highly unlikely. Diverse in global alliance and approach to international politics as well as location, an instance in which access to LEU from all of these states dries up seems unimaginable. In the unlikely event that none of the nations with enrichment capabilities could supply LEU on the open market, the paltry amounts in the LEU Bank would be far from adequate, while if a country were political excluded from purchasing LEU – not that it is able to be used to create a nuclear bomb anyway – by these nations, it most likely would be as well by the bank.
A new approach
This should been seen as part of a wider initiative to contain nuclear proliferation and prevent certain countries from acquiring the technology behind enrichment. Indeed, two similar initiatives already exist, also under the auspices of the IAEA in Russia, while the US has unilaterally set up its own reserve bank.
The problem stems from the fact that the technology centrifuge required to enrich uranium to peaceful LEU is not far from that needed to create HEU, which can be turned into a nuclear weapon. This is what much of the dispute and eventual agreement with Iran centred on. It was to this end in 2003 that then IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei “called for a new approach to the sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle – uranium enrichment and plutonium separation”, according to Tariq Rauf in a paper for the Stockholm International Peace Institute.
In order to prevent the need of countries to develop centrifuges through which uranium is enriched – but still allow them to use nuclear power – countries are to be encouraged to purchase LEU on the open market with the assurance that a reserve bank will mean they will not see supplies on the market dry up. Having the ability to enrich your own uranium means you need not worry about supplies on the open market becoming inaccessible; a reserve bank is supposed to act as that blanket of safety instead, preventing countries from developing the capability to enrich uranium. As Rauf further noted, an LEU bank will reduce “possible nuclear proliferation risks of new national enrichment capabilities”, meaning certain supposedly dangerous countries will not need to create enrichment technology.
The US, itself a baker of the energy bank, has made its intentions clear on this in two regards. Firstly, President Obama in a 2009 speech called for “a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation”. Secondly, the country has embarked upon the creation of its own LEU reserve bank known as the Assured Fuel Supply, which consists of 290 tonnes of LEU made from downgraded HEU which will be a back up for either domestic or foreign reactors.
According the National Nuclear Security Administration, World Nuclear News reported it will create “a vehicle for promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy without exacerbating nuclear proliferation risks: if countries looking to develop nuclear power programmes can be assured of a secure supply of nuclear fuel, then any need to develop uranium enrichment technology in those countries is removed”.
Far from securing supply, however, it could lead to the use of supply restriction of LEU to certain countries as a form of punishment. Although controlled by the IAEA, if certain countries fall out of favour with the international community it could potentially see their access to LEU complexly restricted. International institutions, while ostensibly independent, are often subject to politicisation and dominated by more powerful international actors. The IAEA does not exist in a vacuum, and like other such agencies is open to political sway and influence by more powerful states.
This can already be observed from a US Cable that stated that the IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said he was “solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme”. The potential result of such international energy banks, ironically, could make supplies to LEU less secure for certain countries. In practice, countries relying on a reserve bank rather than pursuing their own nuclear enrichment technology would be surrounding a part of their sovereignty and, to borrow a phrase popular in American politics, lose their energy independence.
