IAEA launches fuel bank for low-enriched uranium

A secure 880 m² warehouse in eastern Kazakhstan is now the site of the world’s first independent low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel bank. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) formally took over the facility in a 29 August ceremony in the capital city of Astana, 900 km to the west. The milestone was scheduled to coincide with the city’s hosting of the biennial Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs .

Any IAEA member in good standing can apply to buy fuel from the bank at the market rate. To allow compatibility with the world’s many different reactor designs, the bank will hold a relatively basic compound, uranium hexafluoride. Buyer countries can process the compound into fuel, at either the bank or a third-party facility. More than 90 metric tons of UF₆ will be stored at the bank, enough to power a 1 GW reactor for three years.

Of the 31 countries with nuclear reactors , only 14 have the capability to produce their own fuel; about 30 additional countries are seriously considering installing nuclear power. But there are only a handful of major fuel suppliers , and they are based in Europe, Russia, and the US; Russia manufactures fuel for roughly 35% of the global market. That reliance on a precious few suppliers has driven some countries, worried about getting cut off for political or economic reasons, to build their own fuel-enrichment plants. The IAEA LEU Bank is intended to address such concerns and in the process dissuade nations from developing facilities that could ultimately pose a nuclear proliferation threat.

“We hope that having the LEU fuel bank will encourage countries to avoid going into the fuel-enrichment business,” says Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative . The former US senator took the lead on the fuel bank project, just as he did 25 years ago on the Nunn–Lugar Act, which is considered one of the strongest recent safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation (see Physics Today, June 1995, page 26 ). Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov agreed with Nunn, calling the bank “an important element of the international effort not just in nonproliferation but also in the sphere of expansion of the countries that are putting nuclear energy to good use.”

The completion of the bank is the culmination of an effort that kicked into gear soon after the discovery of advanced Iranian centrifuges was announced in 2005. At a conference in London, Nunn heard his colleague Charles B. Curtis talk about the IAEA setting up its own fuel reserve. “This wasn’t a new idea,” says Nunn. “But this time, following discussions with [then IAEA director general] Mohamed ElBaradei, it looked more viable.”

The key to developing an independent fuel bank was seed capital, and Nunn knew the right person to approach: Warren Buffett. The well-known investor had taken a keen interest in what he calls “risk reduction” and had told Nunn to let him know of good ideas for reducing proliferation risks. In 2006 Nunn called Buffett from outside IAEA headquarters during a break in negotiations over the bank. “Of course I’ll support it,” Buffett said over the phone. “How much money do you need?”

Nunn suggested $50 million, with the IAEA getting other investors to contribute another $50 million. Buffett agreed to contribute his share as long as the IAEA would secure another $100 million. Over time, the US government put in $50 million, the European Union $32 million, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait $10 million each, and Norway $5 million. That financial support will keep the bank fully funded for the next 20 years. In 2011, with most of the money raised, Kazakhstan offered to host the facility at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk. “Kazakhstan has done some great work in the area of nonproliferation,” said former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz at the Pugwash conference.

Now that the facility is officially open, the IAEA has issued a tender option to buy the fuel for the bank on the open market. That move isn’t completely without controversy, with some US officials grumbling that a Russian company is likely to win the bid. Both China and Russia have signed agreements with the IAEA to allow safe passage of the material to and from the bank. The European Union is paying for security to transport the fuel there, which will start in 2018.

Nunn is pleased with how the bank has developed. “In my years of working to reduce nuclear risk, I have often asked myself, particularly when things look very difficult, if God forbid the world suffers a nuclear catastrophe, what steps would we wish we had taken to prevent it?” he says. “This fuel bank is one of those steps, a crucial step toward a safer world.”