Reducing Proliferation Risk

摘要

The coming expansion of nuclear power can be a security as well as an environmental blessing, but only if it comes without a great increase in the risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.rnThe use of nuclear energy to produce electricity is expanding worldwide, and as it does the danger that nuclear weapons will also be developed is increasing as well. Historically, most of the nuclear power industry has been concentrated in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Today, however, many countries are planning reactors and making choices about their fuel supply that will determine the risk of weapons proliferation for the next generation. Although the countries that traditionally set the tune for nuclear power policies have waning influence on who goes nuclear, they may be able to affect how it is done and thus reduce the proliferation risk. The key is rethinking the fuel cycle: the process by which nuclear fuel is supplied to reactors, recycled, and disposed of. There is no nuclear fuel cycle that can, on technical grounds alone, be made proliferation-proof against governments bent on siphoning off materials to make weapons.rnOpportunities exist for the diversion of weapons-usable material at the front end of the fuel cycle, during which natural uranium is enriched to make reactor fuel. Opportunities also exist at the back end of the cycle to extract fissile material from the spent fuel removed from reactors. Although a complete siphon-proof system is impractical, one maxim can guide our thinking on lowering the odds of proliferation: The more places in which this work is done, the harder it is to monitor.