Frameworks for assurance of reactor fuel supply and spent nuclear fuel take-back

Full text: Establishing a framework for an assured supply of fuel to the world's nuclear reactors is a means to encourage the expansion of nuclear energy while discouraging the spread of enrichment technologies. Fresh natural or low enrichment reactor fuel could be provided to meet growing demands without increasing the number of States providing enrichment services. However, spent fuel management is far more complex; with the exception of France, no State has established a viable system for spent fuel management and even in France, no long-term storage is available for nuclear waste. While Russia has changed its laws allowing it to import spent fuel, it has yet to act on such an arrangement and no other State has indicated any such interest. Fresh fuel meets a demand that is essential for the operation of a reactor; removing spent fuel is something that, though possible to postpone, will be made necessary by the demand for fresh reactor fuel. Forecasted growth in nuclear energy demand will create requirements for both fresh fuel supply and spent reactor fuel take-back. Presently, the provision of front end fuel assurances would be easier to accomplish than spent fuel take back arrangements. An initial focus on assurances of fresh fuel supply can allow progress to be made while establishing a basis for ultimately addressing spent fuel. Nonetheless, arrangements must be made jointly to resolve international issues of fresh fuel supply and spent fuel take-back, the front- and back-ends to the nuclear fuel cycle. Such resolution will support nonproliferation efforts by further defining the role of the market in fuel cycle-related transactions and thus more clearly bind national capabilities of enrichment and reprocessing to trade and international economic activity. This could serve to depoliticize the role of safeguards verification in evaluating the purpose of state fuel cycle capabilities. This paper identifies five ways in which 'assurances of supply' might be constructed. To the extent that any of them might achieve the objective of inhibiting the spread of enrichment technology or the uncontrolled availability of uranium, all might succeed. Some of these would be preferable in a given instance, and one offers a possibility for creating a normative structure potentially having universal appeal, but in principle none should be prohibited. These models could encourage the adoption of universal standards for safety, for the sustainability of the supply network, as well as meet the varying desires for political, economic, and resource certainty.. This paper will examine geographic and political possibilities, as well as time frames (in some cases overlapping) for implementation of each of these models. The five fuel supply models include: 1) initial and complete fuel purchases for the life of a reactor, 2) an IAEA-centered 'fuel-bank', 3) state-supplier negotiations with IAEA backing, 4) bilateral transfer arrangements, and 5) commercial offerings. Spent fuel take-back arrangements, necessarily the mirror image of fresh fuel supply, will be presented in this paper on topical platforms identical to those used to examine fresh fuel supply. Take-back arrangements will be explored as: 1) incorporated into the sale of fuel, and possibly in some cases in the sale of reactors, 2) in terms of creating an IAEA global fuel cycle management system, 3) an IAEA role as broker of spent fuel management services, 4) bilateral arrangements, and 5) commercial reprocessing, without government sponsorship. (author)