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James Acton argues in Survival that proliferation risks ought to play a bigger role in decisions about nuclear power:

Policymakers, industry insiders and regulators have usually failed to factor proliferation concerns into decisions about nuclear energy. If the policy of abolishing nuclear weapons is to be anything more than rhetoric, proliferation concerns will have to be taken much more seriously and given due weight in decisions about nuclear energy. In some cases, this might involve the decision to forsake a technology that offers and economic advantage where this is outweighed by the proliferation risk. Realistically the gas centrifuge is too economically advantageous, and its use too entrenched, to be phased out. The opportunity does exist, however, to forsake enrichment and other nuclear technologies that have not yet been commercialised.

Today, for instance, Global Laser Enrichment (GLE, owned by General Electric Hitachi) is attempting to commercialise a new enrichment process (known as the SILEX process) based on lasers. GLE expects that the SILEX process will be more profitable to enrichment firms that other technologies. However, the economic benefits of cheaper enrichment to electricity consumers are slight because enrichment typically accounts for less than 5% of the total cost of nuclear electricity. Meanwhile, laser enrichment is probably even more worrying from a prolifieration perspective than the gas centrifuge because detecting a small, clandestine laser-enrichment plant is likely to be even harder than detecting a secret gas-centrifuge enrichment plant of similar capacity. Regulators should factor such concerns into licensing decisions for all nuclear technologies and be willing to deny applications if they determine that the costs outweigh the benefits, as is almost certainly the case with GLE, for instance. Forsaking sensitive nuclear technologies on non-proliferation grounds would be controversial, but justifiable.

I guess we won’t be seeing Tammy Orr, the CEO of GLE, at the next Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference. No word yet on Orr’s taste in shoes.

Comment [20]

Iran is obviously investing a lot of its political, intellectual, and financial resources into the Natanz enrichment center. But can we come up with a figure for how much it has cost Iran? Perhaps we can estimate it based on costs associated with Western equivalents. I have attempted to do this below. The result is simply a ballpark figure and I should warning you that making budget estimates, just as making sausages, is not a pretty sight!

Warning: What follows might not be suitable reading for the infirm or small children!

Centrifuge Production Know-how…$75 million
Industrial know-how, the techniques actually used by the shop-floor workers, is vitally important for the successful production of any sophisticated item. Unfortunately, it is determined by how much the market will bear. How then should we estimate it? I decided to look at how much Iraq paid (or, rather, was willing to pay) for the know-how to build an advanced solid-propellant missile, the Badr-2000 (aka the Condor II). This know-how cost is explicitly stipulated in the contract Iraq signed with its supplier state: $75 M, after correcting for inflation. It could be argued that Iran might be willing to pay considerably more for the know-how for centrifuge production but any such guess would be just that. (This, as I warned you, is the ugly part.)

Construction of the underground facility…$55 million
ISIS has done a great job in following the construction of the Natanz facility using satellite reconnaissance. Assuming that the holes dug for the “cut-and-cover” enrichment halls are 25 meters deep, then the excavation costs (at $3 per cubic yard) is $7 M. The concrete, at $70/cubic yard, (and assuming floors, ceiling, and walls are 2 meters thick), is then $37 M. Those do not add up to the $55 M but if you assume a 50% “penalty” for working in a desert, then that’s what you get. (Again, ugly.)

Centrifuge production…$140 million
Given that Iran bought the know-how and initial production lines (production equipment not included, ugly!), I am only estimating the cost per centrifuge here. That comes from the cost per centrifuge for URENCO centrifuges as being leased to France. (Ugly, ugly! Let me be clear before somebody takes offense: when I say ugly, I mean my method of estimating is ugly.) You could argue that URENCO centrifuges are more sophisticated and therefore should cost more. Or you could argue that cost is determined by the relative level of sophistication of the production line compared to the past experience of the producer. (That’s what I assume; ugly, ugly, ugly!) I then get a per centrifuge cost of $20,000. Seven thousand of them therefore means a total of $140 M. The one thing that does not make sense is to cost them per SWU; manufacturers produce centrifuges not SWUs.

Grand total cost = $270 million and counting

Comment [5]

What is the difference between natural uranium and dirty laundry? The Laundromat throws the dirty water away while the enricher keeps the depleted uranium. That makes doing the laundry a service while EURODIF keeping the tails makes them a producer of LEU (as opposed to a provider of enrichment services, which I’ve always called them). Strangely enough, I agree with the ruling written by Justice Souter:

A customer who comes to a laundry with cash and dirty shirts is clearly purchasing cleaning services, not clean shirts. And a customer who provides cash and sand to a manufacturer of generic silicon processors is clearly buying chips rather than sand enhancement services. … But the line blurs when the facts get more complicated.

As I mentioned in my post on uranium enrichment, the customers of “enrichment service providers”—as they style themselves—don’t, in general, want the tails returned to them. It costs money to store and to convert back from UF6 to something more storable; neither of which do the nuclear power plants want to bother with. It seems from the Court ruling that if the enrichers dumped the tails down the drain they would be providing a service. Instead, they are taking ownership of the natural uranium, removing an enriched fraction from it, and selling that product to the nuclear power plant. As a final proof, URENCO, at least, has sold some its tails to Russia for further enrichment, demonstrating that the enrichers consider the natural uranium their own. (This, of course, begs the question why the nuclear power plants bear the total cost of supplying natural uranium to the enrichers, or at least that is my understanding. Anyone know for certain?)

Several readers of that post commented on the megatons to megawatts deal with Russia (which I will refer to as the “HEU deal”) and pointed out that as that deal comes to an end, there will be an increased demand for enrichment capability. That, of course, is absolutely true. But the HEU deal doesn’t really have to come to an end. USEC, however, is apparently using the details of the HEU deal to force Russia to sell them the blended down uranium at low prices. In fact, the US managed to word the deal so that they only pay Russia for the separative work units to make the equivalent amount of LEU. They are, in other words, getting the uranium for free. (TENEX, the Russian corporation set up to handle this deal is, by the Supreme Court’s ruling, clearly a service provider.) This is why Russia is not delirious about continuing the deal. So it seems a bit rich for USEC to be suing EURODIF about dumping on the US market.

Comment [5]

click on the image for a larger version

A recent London Times article reports that Israel is worried about Hamas using its artillery rockets to shell the Dimona reactor. I thought it would be interesting to calculate the probability of one of those rockets actually hitting the reactor containment vessel, which is 18 m is radius. Of course, if it was really an artillery rocket, it might have to hit it twice, once to penetrate the containment vessel and once to blow up the reactor. But that is a refinement we won’t go into right now.

Of course, we need to decide which rocket Hamas might actually use. The Times reports the Israelis are worried about the Fajr-3, which, according to globalsecurity.org, has a range of 45 km while Dimona is approximately 80 km away from the closest point to the Gaza Strip. So it’s probably not the Fajr-3. Perhaps they meant the Fajr-5, which has a range, according to globalsecurity.org, of 75 km. While Dimona is seemingly beyond the range of even the Fajr-5, there is considerable uncertainty in those sorts of quantities so it is at least possible.

If we use the 3000 m CEP for the Fajr-5, there is a 0.004% chance that its 90 kg warhead will hit the reactor containment vessel. (The only reference I found for the Fajr-5’s CEP was by Oliver Schmidt which lists it as 3000 m.) If, on the other hand, Hamas had managed to smuggle in Zalzel-2 guided missiles, which is said to have a CEP of 200 m, then there is a 0.3% chance of hitting the containment vessel with each rocket.

Comment [29]

One of the perennial debates that rages in the comments section of this blog is about the meaning of article IV of the NPT. As a quick recap, recall that article IV.1 states that

Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II of this Treaty.

The debate typically revolves around two questions. First, how far does the right “to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy” extend? Does it include enrichment and reprocessing technology, or stop at power reactors? Second, even if it does not say so explicitly, are article IV rights contingent upon compliance with IAEA safeguards (as set out in article III)?

I recently came across some interesting historical material that sheds some light on these questions.

A word or two of background is needed first. Article II (upon which Article IV rights are explicitly conditioned) contains the injunction against non-nuclear weapon states not to “manufacture” nuclear weapons. The term manufacture is not defined in the treaty but, as I wrote about in my first VERTIC paper, the negotiation history of the NPT provides a useful guide.

There was considerable debate during NPT negotiations over the meaning of manufacture. Agreement was eventually reached in a set of purpose criteria, sometimes known as the ‘Foster Criteria’ (after ACDA Director William Foster). According to Josef Goldblat (in Arms Control: A New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements) these criteria have not been challenged.

Most of the time the Foster criteria are simply given as: “Facts indicating that the purpose of a particular activity was the acquisition of a nuclear explosive device would tend to show non-compliance.” But, occasionally, they are quoted in a longer form:

Facts indicating that the purpose of a particular activity was the acquisition of a nuclear explosive device would tend to show non-compliance. (Thus, the construction of an experimental prototype nuclear explosive device would be covered by the term “manufacture” as would be the production of components which would only have relevance to a nuclear explosive device.) Again, while the placing of a particular activity under safeguards would not, in and of itself, settle the question of whether that activity was in compliance with the treaty, it would of course be helpful in allaying any suspicion of non-compliance.

A month or two ago, I was given a copy of Mohamed Shaker’s epic but almost impossible-to-find The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Foster Criteria appear to be based on Foster’s testimony to the Senate. In this testimony there is a second, very interesting paragraph that I have never seen before. It goes like this:

It may be useful to point out, for illustrative purposes, several activities which the United States would not consider per se to be violations of the prohibitions in Article II. Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful nuclear program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III. Also clearly permitted would be the development, under safeguards, of plutonium fueled power reactors, including research on the properties of metallic plutonium, nor would Article II interfere with the development or use of fast breeder reactors under safeguards.

Foster could hardly be clearer: In his view article IV permits pretty much anything short of building a nuke so long as (i) it is carried out under safeguards and (ii) it is done with peaceful intent (something it is impossible to determine in practice as I have argued many times before).

I should add that I’m not under any illusions that this will change the minds of any of those who regularly debate this issue on the blog. And, indeed, I know enough about international law to know that one extra paragraph of Senate testimony hardly settles this issue. But it is still notable how explicit the US was at the time about the extent of article IV rights.

Comment [17]

Remember that reality-based community comment from the anonymous Bush Administration official?

Well, “history’s actors” are at it again, still working to determine whether the current Administration policies on nuclear energy will spur proliferation.

Let me back up.

Dr. Kerry Kartchner (who incidentally wrote a good book on START) sent an e-mail to his colleagues in T/ISN*, following-up on a May 19 meeting “to discuss a public diplomacy strategy to get out the message on what we are doing to promote the responsible expansion of nuclear energy around the globe.”

(A friend of wonk who must remain anonymous happily forwarded said e-mail to yours truly with witty commentary.)

The e-mail, which I have posted below sans email addresses, includes a draft public diplomacy (PD) strategy that I have posted online. Both make for an interesting read:

“Kartchner, Kerry M”
05/23/2008 04:21 PM

To: “Humphrey, Marc A”, “Carnahan, Burrus M”, “Uhre, Katharine L”, “Harbaugh, Erin E”

cc: “Daniel, Jody L”,

Subject: First Draft of PD Strategy for Responsible Expansion of Nuc Energy

I need help filling in: “key themes” and “misconceptions, criticisms”. Comments by COB Wednesday. (I will be tied up with the PSI conference through Wednesday).

-Kerry

PD Strategy for Responsible Expansion of Nuc Energy.doc>>

The draft PD strategy is amusing for at least two reasons:

First, the strategy includes “an interview with the Post reporter who authored the rather unhelpful front page article last Monday.”

That would be a reference to Joby Warrick’s article, Spread of Nuclear Capability Is Feared, Global Interest in Energy May Presage A New Arms Race (May 12, 2008; Page A1). It’s possible that this article is the reason that ISN is drafting a strategy in the first place.

I guess the lesson is that although you can’t catch flies with honey, you can by making their life miserable on the front page of the Washington Post. Anyway, Ms. Parillo eagerly awaits her invitation to the proposed “roundtable discussion at the State Department” for NGOs.

Second, as you can see from his email, Dr. Kartchner needs a little help filling in the “misperceptions” section, particularly correcting “myths” that the spread of nuclear power will lead to nuclear proliferation or that the US seeks monopolize the market for nuclear energy technology.

For now, the “reality” is marked as TBD — to be determined — which I think kind of sums it all up.

Misconceptions and Our Response

(1) Myth: The United States opposes the rapid growth in global efforts to develop nuclear energy.

Reality: The United States supports creating a viable alternative to the development of complete enrichment and reprocessing technologies for states seeking to develop or expand their civil nuclear energy capability.

(2) Myth: Promoting the global spread of nuclear energy will necessarily lead to proliferation of latent nuclear weapons capability.

Reality: tbd

(3) Myth: The United States is seeking to monopolize global trade in nuclear energy technology.

Reality: tbd

Now I know, “TBD” is just bureaucratise for “find the appropriate boilerplate”. And GULAG was just an acronym. Sometimes ill-fitting bureaucratic language perfectly conveys, if only though though its awkwardness, the gap between the stated policy and our much maligned friend, reality. That’s one reason why 1984 is a good read.

One wag suggested that perhaps Dr. Kartchner was having trouble rebutting the claim that nuclear power won’t lead to nuclear proliferation because, well, it will. Same goes for denying that you want to monopolize the market when. of course, you do.

I, on the other hand, make no claim about the inner mental world of any State Department official. I prefer to think that Dr. Kartchner and his staff are just too busy, what with so many Proliferation Security Initiative meetings to attend and whatnot.

So, why not help a guy out?

I know that he wants suggestions by Wednesday, but I still invite readers to comment on their own “realities” to rebut the myths, the best of which we can send to Dr. Kartchner.

And, for those readers currently employed in ISN — and we have many — you may want to make sure that your snide submissions don’t too closely resemble something you might actually write in a memo.

Enjoy!

*One recipient, Katherine “Katie” Uhrey, works in the Office of Commercial and Business Affairs, outside T.

Comment [4]

I just returned from an informative lunch at the Council on Foreign Relations featuring Ambassador Tetsuya Endo, who chaired a recent Japanese government task force on nuclear energy. Fuel assurance was a prominent theme in the not-for-attribution discussion, and I was surprised to hear several prominent American nonproliferation experts assert that there never has been, nor ever will be, any real fuel assurance problem.

There is a legitimate debate to be had on the reliability of the existing constellation of nuclear fuel suppliers. I am conducting a study on this question that I hope to complete in the next 6-8 weeks. My view, in summary, is that a state’s confidence in the existing commercial market for enriched uranium is primarily a function of its broader political and economic relationship with one or more of the main suppliers. I will elaborate further when the study is complete.

But there is no room for debate on whether nuclear fuel assurance has been a legitimate concern in the past. The experts were wrong — it most certainly has.

For example, it became a major issue in the 1970s when, among other disruptive developments, the United States implemented a series of changes in enrichment services contracting policy that dramatically undermined global confidence in its reliability as a supplier of enriched uranium. The effect was to “increase the pace of commitments to plutonium fuels, breeder reactors, and indigenous enrichment and reprocessing plants,” particularly in Western Europe, where Urenco and Eurodif were taking shape.

That quote comes from a masterful 1979 MIT Energy Laboratory study conducted for DOE by Thomas L. Neff and Henry D. Jacoby, entitled Nuclear Fuel Assurance—Origins, Trends, and Policy Issues. The study really captures the prevailing sentiment during this key historical period:

The evolution of commercial nuclear power and nuclear fuel supply internationally has been characterized by interdependent changes in technological, political and commercial dimensions. What was once a world in which the U.S. was the dominant force in all three dimensions—the major source of technology and fuel supplies as well as political leadership in spreading atomic power and controlling it—is now a world in which these powers must be shared with other states whose balance of interests is not necessarily the same as that of the United States. Other industrialized countries have developed their own domestic nuclear industries—first reactors and now enrichment and other fuel cycle services—thus reducing U.S. involvement and influence abroad. New suppliers have also begun to compete with the United States in the remaining export markets, notably the developing countries; this competition has been made more intense by the need to find external markets for nuclear industries whose domestic markets are threatened by public opposition or other difficulties. In addition, the rising expectations and desires for autonomy of the developing world have altered their traditional relationships with industrialized countries.

These changes have been paralleled by a new awareness of the importance of secure energy supplies to national health and security, engendered, initially, by the oil embargo and price increases of 1973-74. The countries of Western Europe and Japan—whose established economies are critically dependent on energy which is largely imported—and the developing countries—whose hopefully rapid growth is dependent on increasing energy supplies—were also more strongly affected than the U.S. by multiple failures and growing pains of the nuclear fuel supply system over the past five years.

Thus, while insecurity of fossil fuels was intensifying interest in nuclear power, there were increasing concerns about the security of nuclear fuel supply. In part these were due to conventional market development problems but they also reflected the changing political and commercial relationships between the United States and its traditional nuclear customers. Both have been responsible for the drive for nuclear autonomy represented by acquisition of LWR fuel cycle facilities and development of plutonium breeders.

This study is required reading for anybody interested in nuclear fuel assurance.

Addendum: For more on the chaotic nuclear fuel market of the 1970s, I also recommend Neff’s book-length analysis, The International Uranium Market (1984), Edward F. Wonder’s Nuclear Fuel and American Foreign Policy (1977), William Walker and Måns Lönnroth’s Nuclear Power Struggles (1983), and Michael J. Brenner’s Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation—The Remaking of U.S. Policy (1981). Paul Joskow provides an excellent overview of the 1975 Westinghouse debacle in Commercial Impossibility, the Uranium Market and the Westinghouse Case (6 J. Legal Stud. 119 [1977]).

Comment [8]