Department of Energy officials have spent weeks trying to knock down
reports that they have been interested in building a nuclear waste
repository in Mongolia.
Now, the Obama administration is going a step further, disclosing that
what DOE hopes to do is "lease" uranium from other countries, then
return the spent fuel to the originating country.
A senior Obama administration official told
Greenwire earlier
this month that the government is in preliminary talks with several
countries, including Mongolia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, about
setting up commercial nuclear fuel leasing arrangements.
In one example of how a fuel leasing arrangement could work, countries
with uranium reserves could mine, enrich and fabricate the material and
lease it to reactor companies abroad. Spent nuclear fuel would then be
sent back to the originating country, the official said.
Discussions have not touched upon what those countries would do with the
waste, the official said, but the United States hopes to prevent
proliferation by providing alternatives to domestic enrichment and
reprocessing capabilities.
Other countries and international entities have also been working to
create "fuel banks" -- reserves of nuclear fuel for countries facing
fuel supply disruptions -- the official said. So far, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Russia have taken firm steps to set up
international fuel banks, and Kazakhstan has volunteered to host the
IAEA fuel bank, said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear energy analyst with the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Last week, the United States
announced plans to set up a fuel bank using excess uranium from the
country's nuclear weapons program (
E&ENews PM, Aug. 18).
But Hibbs said there have been considerable differences of opinion
within the Obama administration on how to move forward with nuclear fuel
leasing.
"Some of the differences have to do with how the U.S. would implement
the conditions for the supply of sensitive nuclear technology to new
nuclear countries," Hibbs said.
The United States' participation in or sponsorship of any complex
nuclear fuel leasing program involving fuel supply, enrichment and
storage of spent fuel with foreign countries depends on the resolution
of a struggle between Congress and the executive branch on what America
will require in future nuclear cooperation agreements, he said.
Countries of interest
The United States currently has nuclear cooperation agreements under
Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act with Japan and the United Arab
Emirates, but not Mongolia, according to federal officials. Such
agreements are required for significant transfers of nuclear material,
equipment or components from the United States to another nation and
work in conjunction with nonproliferation efforts.
U.S. companies can sell advanced nuclear information and technology,
such as reactors, to the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates
-- which agreed not to enrich uranium or reprocess used fuel under the
123 agreement -- hopes to develop its nuclear industry in coming decades
and signed an agreement in February with South Korea for the
construction of four nuclear reactors by 2020 (
ClimateWire, Feb. 25).
Japan, on the other hand, already has a large nuclear fleet and is
seeking ways to dispose of its nuclear waste, said Edwin Lyman, a senior
scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Some communities in Japan are wary of expanding dry cask storage of
nuclear waste because such facilities could become permanent, Lyman
said. The country could build more dry storage facilities, but the
question is whether Japan has the political will to find a domestic
permanent geologic repository, he added. Japan is also struggling to
defuse a nuclear disaster that erupted at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
complex after the plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami on March
11, triggering explosions, radioactive leaks and multiple evacuations.
Reports that the United States was in discussions to build a nuclear
waste repository in Mongolia started swirling after Richard Stratford,
director of the State Department's Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security
Office, told the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference on
March 29 that the United States was in discussions about building an
"international storage depot" for spent nuclear fuel in Mongolia (
Greenwire, May 9).
Stratford said U.S. officials were discussing forging a 123 agreement
with Mongolia that could involve building an international nuclear waste
repository of some type. The U.S. Embassy in Mongolia later denied
Stratford's statement, and DOE said the United States cannot negotiate
commercial deals or tell another government whether or not to take spent
nuclear fuel.
Although the United States does not have a nuclear cooperation agreement
with Mongolia, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding
last year to cooperate on civil nuclear technology, including security,
nonproliferation and waste management.
The land-locked developing country in central Asia bordering Russia and
China has a parliamentary government and limited economic development
because of its harsh climate, scattered population and expanses of
unproductive land, according to the IAEA. Mongolia's economy has
traditionally been based on herding and agriculture, but foreign
investors are attracted to the country's large deposits of copper, gold,
coal, uranium, tin and tungsten, according to the Central Intelligence
Agency. Half of the country's total external trade is with China, the
CIA has reported.
The United States would need to establish an agreement with Mongolia if
countries with U.S.-obligated fuel were to ship nuclear waste there,
Lyman has said (
Greenwire, May 9).
Lyman said there has been no indication that nuclear fuel leasing
arrangements being discussed would involve spent nuclear fuel from
American reactors but added that if another country is willing to accept
foreign waste, it might prompt officials and other experts to take a
fresh look at the option.
Hibbs said the commercial nuclear fuel leasing arrangements the
administration official discussed seem to be consistent with what some
U.S. officials want to see for the International Framework for Nuclear
Energy Cooperation (IFNEC), formerly the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership.
The Obama administration scrapped parts of GNEP, which was part of the
George W. Bush administration's efforts to accelerate research and
development on the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in reactors (
ClimateWire,
Dec. 24, 2009). The partnership was seeking to create "cradle-to-grave
fuel services" under a regulated market for enriched uranium, which
would allow a few large countries to supply smaller ones with enriched
uranium to burn in reactors, sparing them the billions of dollars needed
to build facilities for uranium processing and disposal (
Greenwire, Oct. 26, 2010).
But Hibbs also acknowledged that preliminary talks with Mongolia, which
was not part of the original GNEP partnership, add a new dimension.
Mongolia is now an observer country in IFNEC, he added.
Potential challenges
Hibbs said involving Mongolia in such a nuclear fuel leasing program
might be logical because the country has uranium reserves and relatively
few resources to further its economic development but added that there
are serious questions about how Mongolia could contribute to such
international leasing arrangements because the country has no "nuclear
expertise."
"It's not clear how transparent its corporate and political governance
structure is; all these questions would have to be resolved before any
project like that could go forward," Hibbs said.
The United States also recently made an agreement together with the
nuclear supply countries that would "discourage the transfer of
enrichment technology or reprocessing technology to Mongolia," Hibbs
said.
The United States and 45 other countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group
-- a multinational organization of nuclear supplier countries seeking to
limit proliferation of nuclear weapons -- agreed to new global terms of
trade for uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing in June.
The new guidelines require countries that want to obtain nuclear
technology to meet a raft of requirements, including full compliance
with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, being cited by international
nuclear regulators for safeguard deficits, complying with a safeguard
agreement with the IAEA and adhering to international nuclear safety
norms.
Disagreements within the federal government and Congress could also pose
challenges for new nuclear cooperation agreements.
Some lawmakers want increased congressional oversight of the
international arrangements, especially if risky politics are involved.
Congress currently has little oversight because the agreements
automatically go into effect unless the opposition can secure veto-proof
majorities in the Senate and House (
Greenwire, March 17).
House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) introduced
a bill in late March that would amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to
impose stricter standards on international 123 agreements that govern
U.S. exports of commercial nuclear technology, facilities, materials and
services.
Under the legislation, cooperation agreements would be required to get
an affirmative vote from Congress before going into effect and to
strengthen nonproliferation agreements within those contracts in the
future. Countries that enter into such agreements with the United States
would have to forgo enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear material and
assist in preventing state sponsors of terrorism from acquiring or
developing weapons.
The legislation -- and its counterpart in the Senate -- would also
require Congress to approve 123 agreements, and the United States would
be required to demand the return of nuclear material and equipment from
countries that withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons.
Ros-Lehtinen has said such oversight is crucial to preventing another
nuclear crisis on par with Japan's crisis that erupted at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear complex after the plant was struck by an earthquake and
tsunami in March.
Gene Aloise, the Government Accountability Office's director of natural
resources and environment, said in March that countries could simply
enter into an agreement elsewhere if they dislike standards that the
United States floats (
Greenwire, March 17).
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Source:New York Times