RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY AND NONPROLIFERATION

Abstract

The phenomenon of global warming has led to a revival of the prospects for increased nuclear energy production worldwide, yet such increased production carries with it the increased risk of proliferation. To mitigate this risk, various multinational arrangements have been proposed to provide reliable supply of nuclear fuel while at the same time discouraging the construction of national plants for nuclear enrichment and reprocessing. This article provides a brief history of some of these proposals and concludes that the likelihood of success for such schemes as effective tools for nonproliferation is not high at this time. A proposal from the World Council on Renewable Energy to expand the understanding of supplier obligations under Article IV of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to include the development of non-nuclear energy technologies for NPT parties in good standing is potentially a much better nonproliferation tool. Such an approach tracks the ideas contained in Title V of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, which has recently received revived congressional interest.

Keywords:

• Nuclear power
• proliferation
• renewable energy
• international fuel bank

Notes

1. Matthew Wald, “Experts See Nuclear Energy as Cure for Global Warming,” New York Times, September 25, 1989, p. D2.

2. A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 16, 1946), available as Department of State Publication 2498, <www.learnworld.com/ZNW/LWText.Acheson-Lilienthal.html>.

3. James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), p. 127.

4. Ira Chernus, Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace (Bryan, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2002), pp. 27–28.

5. For the “too cheap to meter” quote, see Lewis L. Strauss, “Speech to the National Association of Science Writers,” New York City, September 16, 1954, as printed in New York Times, September 17, 1954.

6. Many papers over the years have cogently argued that NPT Article IV does not give a country per se an inalienable right to develop nuclear technology simply because that country declares its facilities and allows IAEA inspections. Unfortunately, these arguments have not resonated sufficiently with the world's nuclear community for any official change to occur in the interpretation of Article IV. See Robert Zarate, “The NPT, IAEA Safeguards, and Peaceful Nuclear Energy: An ‘Inalienable Right’, but Precisely to What?” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), pp. 221–90.

7. See Jacqueline Shire and David Albright, “Iran's NPT Violations—Numerous and Possibly On-going?” Institute for Science and International Security, September 29, 2006, <www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/irannptviolations.pdf>.

8. William Lanouette, “Atomic Energy 1945–1985,” Wilson Quarterly 9 (Winter 1985), p. 100.

9. See Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of The Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets (Hachette Book Group, 2007).

10. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Documents, vol. 12, no. 44, pp. 1626–27, 1976.

11. Thomas W. Wood, Matthew D. Milazzo, Barbara A. Reichmuth, and Jeffrey Bedell, “The Economics of Energy Independence for Iran,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (March 2007), pp. 89–112.

12. “US-India Nuclear Deal Violates NPT: Iranian Official,” Islamic Republic News Agency, October 6, 2008, <www.payvand.com/news/08/oct/1042.html>.

13. In the 110th Congress, on September 11, 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported a bill introduced by Senator Richard Lugar (Republican of Indiana) and Senator Evan Bayh (Democrat of Indiana) calling for a study of the feasibility of establishing INFA as described in the NNPA.

14. ‘‘Remarks by President Barack Obama,’’ Prague, Czech Republic, April 5, 2009.

15. The author acknowledges useful discussions of the material in this section with Chaim Braun of Stanford University.

16. Mohamed ElBaradei, “Towards a Safer World,” Economist, October 16, 2003.

17. IAEA, “Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Expert Group Report Submitted to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” INFCIRC/640, February 22, 2005.

18. “IAEA Nuclear Fuel Bank Reaches Funding Target,” Global Security Newswire, March 9, 2009.

19. See prepared statement of Henry Sokolski, “Keeping Nuclear Energy Peaceful: Why We Must Review the NPT,” testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation Hearing, “Previewing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference,” 109-47, 109th Cong., 1st sess., April 28, 2005.

20. See Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism (New York: Vintage Books, December, 2008).

21. World Council on Renewable Energy, “Action Plan for the Global Proliferation of Renewable Energy,” presented at the First World Renewable Energy Policy and Strategy Forum, Berlin, 2002, <www.wcre.de/en/images/downloads/actionplan_en.pdf>.