Energy Independence vs. Nuclear Safeguards: the US Attitude toward the European Fast Breeder Reactors Program

This chapter is part of a background research on the history of the Italian fast breeder reactor (FBR) program. During the 1970s, FBRs offered revolutionary perspectives in the energy field. But this kind of technology entailed a higher proliferation risk than other types of nuclear reactors, because of the massive separation of plutonium as FBRs' fuel. The US government concern about this potential risk urged it to turn out all the FBR programs active in the United States, as well to oppose other FBR programs ran by Europeans. Based on existing studies on the history of FBRs, this chapter uses some archival evidence about US President Jimmy Carter's policy toward FBRs, concluding with an assessment of the effect of the International Fuel Cycle Evaluation on this technology.