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2006 Nuclear Issues v28 06 |
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Written by Nuclear Issues
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Thursday, 01 June 2006 |
Nuclear Issues is also available as a pdf download
"A big leap" forward?
Speaking to the Fabian Society on 6th June the new Secretary of State
at the DTI, Alistair Darling, was able to refer to “a big leap forward
in renewable generation”.
The recently published DTI Energy Sector Indicators 2006 does indeed show a modest increase in renewable electricity from 3.6 percent of total electricity generation in 2004 to an expected 4.1 percent in 2005.
This increase of nearly 14 percent in generation from renewable sources is not surprising given the large subsidy per kWh some renewables receive under the “Renewables Obligation. These ‘obligation renewables’ - biofuels, wave, solar photovoltaics, onshore/offshore wind and small scale and re-furbished hydro - make up some 70 percent of the renewables total. But in terms of an increase in UK generation the increase is only a trivial 0.5 percent of the total UK generation. The possibility that generation from renewables will meet the target of 10 percent of the total by 2010 must seem remote.
Five years licensing
The UK Health and Safety Executive, which licenses nuclear reactors through its Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, has suggested a two stage process for new plants similar to that adopted in the US. For third generation reactors the first stage would involve generic design authorisation for each specific type of reactor.
It would focus on technical safety issues. Stage two would focus on specific site issues and the operator of the plant.
All this sound fine until you look at the time to be taken by each stage. The first stage would take three years and the second a further year. So why haven’t we started? The generic safety can be considered independently of any order to build a plant. In the US five third generation licenses have already been issued for new designs of third generation plant and a utility only needs a second site license to proceed with a project.
We have had all the necessary information to proceed for years but we have done nothing. If the HSE were not so proud about their independence we could even have accepted the US licenses. But no, any new project in this country faces at least a four year licensing procedures before a single turf is turned.
Centrifuge license in US A long drawn out licensing procedure in the US seems at last to have been successfully concluded. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a license for the construction of the National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico. The initiative for the new plant came from Urenco, the European company which has been successfully operating centrifuge enrichment plants for many years. In 1989 they formed the Louisiana Enrichment Service (LES) in an attempt to break into the US market with their efficient centrifuge plant.
In an attempt to make them more acceptable LES, a wholly owned Urenco subsidiary, formed an association with Cameco – a large Canadian uranium producer, – Westinghouse – at the time owned by British Nuclear Fuels plc but operating internationally from the US, – Flour Daniel – a big US chemical group – and three large US utilities. It is this group, which already has orders amounting to $3.15 billion, which proposed the New Mexico plant. It will cost $1.5 billion and is scheduled to start operation in 2008.
In the meantime the US Enrichment Corporation has switched from gaseous diffusion to centrifuges for its latest plant addition. In France too, Areva has switched to centrifuge technology from Urenco for its future expansion.
Some perennial questions
Whle in Moscow for discussions on the report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Dr Blix was interviewed by the Russian daily on line news review – Komersant. This is an extract from their report.
You have proposed turning the Middle East into a nuclear-free zone. But what can be done about Israel, which, according to your statistics, has 200 nuclear weapons? All the countries of the Middle East, including Israel, have expressed support for making it a zone free not only of nuclear weapons, but of all weapons of mass destruction. But it is completely obvious that that will be impossible until the peace process in the region has progressed further. The countries of the Middle East have to express their intentions not to enrich uranium and plutonium. Many countries are ready to agree to that, if there will be a guarantee that Israel will not produce any more weapons than it already has and that Iran will not produce them at all.
At the end of the 1990s, when India and Pakistan received nuclear technology, the IAEA essentially took no action. Is that a double standard? Why are some allowed to acquire a nuclear arsenal and others not?
India, Pakistan and Israel violated no obligations. They never joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, so there were no illegal actions on their parts. But Iran is party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It promised never to acquire nuclear weapons. Neither the Security Council nor the IAEA has established that Iran is developing a military nuclear program. But there are several signs that Iran is trying to acquire atomic weapons. The solution to the problem is not for more countries to have nuclear weapons, but that India, Pakistan and Israel showed that they want to decrease and not increase their nuclear arms reserves.
Laser enrichment
The furore over Iran’s insistence on its right to operate its centrifuge plant for enriching uranium for its own nuclear power programme has focussed concerns that at some future date in perhaps five years or so Iran will be able to move from the low enrichment of a few percent U-235 to produce the highly enriched uranium required for nuclear weapons. This has overshadowed a potentially more serious, even ground-breaking development – the announcement by the Australian research group Silex Systems of the development of a laser driven uranium enrichment process. If this is brought to a successful conclusion it would, while significantly reducing the cost of nuclear power, greatly complicate the problems of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Silex has now joined with the American GE Energy in a partnership agreement for the commercialisation of its laser enrichment technology. This provides for GE to construct in the USA an engineering-scale test loop within the next three years to be followed by a pilot plant or lead cascade eventually leading to a full commercial plant. In addition to a down payment of US$20 million, and subsequent payments, the license agreement will give Silex royalties of 7-12%, the precise amount depending on the actual cost of deploying the commercial technology. GE has referred to SILEX as “game-changing technology” with a “very high likelihood” of success.
The principle of laser enrichment is that individual atoms (or molecules) of an isotope can be excited and ionised by tuneable lasers without exciting other isotopes. The excited atoms can then be separated by chemical, electrical or magnetic means. The significance for uranium enrichment is that by only ionising atoms of the U-235 isotope it would potentially be possible to produce U-235 in a pure form.
Enrichments of 60 to 90 percent could be achieved in a single pass. In addition the plant and equipment are much smaller, and the energy consumption much lower than in a centrifuge plant where typically thousands of centrifuges are required in a cascade. Significantly, from the perspective of non-proliferation, the small scale of operations would make it easy to conceal a clandestine operation.
If, as has been suggested that laser enrichment were able to cut the cost of enriched uranium by half this would offer a significant reduction in nuclear power costs where enrichment accounts for about 30 percent of nuclear fuel costs.
It is then not surprising that from the 1970’s onward attempts were made in many countries, 20 or more, to develop laser enrichment technology, under the acronyms AVLIS (atomic vapour laser isotope separation) and MLIS (molecular isotope separation), but success proved elusive. Most programmes have been abandoned as initial research failed to be converted to commercial production. In the United States research by the USDOE was carried on by the US Enrichment Corporation (privatised from the DoE in 1998), but despite spending $100 m in the previous year the USEC cancelled its AVLIS programme in June 1999. The USEC had also participated in the Australian SILEX programme but again terminated this in June 2001.
Altogether the US is said to have spent some $2 billion on its laser enrichment programme since the early 1970’s. The USEC is now concentrating on centrifuge enrichment with plans for a 3.5 million SWU plant for operation by 2010 – sufficient to fuel 30-35 1000 MWe light water reactors a year.
Silex Systems originated from a small research team at the Australian Lucas Heights atomic energy research establishment which has been working on the project since 1992. Altogether some $65 million is said to have been spent. The Australian government has been kept informed of the progress of the work. It is suggested that a commercial laser plant in Australia would add value to Australian exports of uranium.
No details of the Silex process have been given, but suggestions that it operates at lower temperatures than the atomic AVLIS type processes suggests that it may be a molecular MLIS system possibly using uranium hexafluoride as the feed material. There is however no doubt that the announcement of a successful process will inspire efforts in many other countries to re-enter this field. Laser technology has advanced considerably since the 1970s and advanced tuneable lasers are commonplace in many research institutes. Just as when the lower cost, more energy efficient centrifuge process replaced diffusion plants attempts to keep the centrifuge technology secret failed - there are at least ten countries now able to operate centrifuge plants - it is inevitable that the knowledge of laser technology will inevitably become widespread.
The situation is made more complex in that laser enrichment is not specific to uranium. There are a number of other elements where the availability of separated isotopes could have a commercial value. It might also find application in removing specific actinides from spent reactor fuel. Another possibility is that the development of a U-235 production laser process could be initially undertaken using elements such as zirconium or ytterbium.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Even before this latest development the IAEA, alarmed that terrorists are trying to acquire nuclear material through criminal networks, had already called for urgent and more coherent global action to minimize the uses of and commerce in high enriched uranium (HEU). The measures recommended include increasing ressearch effort to eliminate the civilian use of HEU by examining the technical obstacles in switching to the use of low enriched uranium (LEU). According to many experts, most if not all of the benefits obtained, such as isotope production for medical treatments, industrial productivity, water management and many other humanitarian uses, could also be achieved using LEU.
Speaking in Oslo, the head of the IAEA Mr. ElBaradei has also called on all countries to agree to stop producing fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. To build confidence, countries with civilian and military high enriched uranium (HEU) stockpiles should release clear inventories of those stockpiles and publish a schedule under which the remaining HEU will be verifiably down-blended. These measures could alleviate proliferation concerns associated with the continued uses of HEU and reduce substantially the risk of nuclear terrorism. He also reiterated his call for all enrichment operations to be brought under multinational control, making it far more difficult for any country to divert enriched uranium for use in weapons.
If the commercial development of the Silex process comes to fruition the knowledge that laser enrichment is achievable will spur efforts in many countries to achieve a similar result. Possible widespread production of HEU, albeit on a small scale, will make measures to strengthen the Non Proliferation Treaty even more urgent. In this respect the groundwork for a step forward comes with the massive 230 page report and the 60 recommendations of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, chaired by Dr Hans Blix. Their report “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the world of Nuclear Biological and Chemical Arms was published on 1st June (www.wmdcommission.org). The Commission was set up on the initiative of the late Foreign Minister of Sweden, Anna Lindh, and had been largely financed by the Swedish government who invited Dr Blix to set up and chair the Commission. Its 14 members are all independent and do not represent their governments or organisations.
So far however apart from a debate in the House of Lords on 6th June, led by Baroness Williams, this report has attracted very little attention and seems to have been ignored by the Government. Indeed the almost throw away statement by Gordon Brown when speaking to the CBI on the replacement of Trident goes in a contrary direction. “France and the UK will have to decide whether it will be meaningful to retain costly nuclear arsenals that were developed for an enemy that no longer exists, in order to meet hypothetical threats against which such weapons are of questionable value.
Both countries are now at a crossroads: going down one road would show their conviction that nuclear weapons are not necessary for their security, while the other would demonstrate to all other states a belief that these weapons continue to be indispensable. In addition, by pursuing their security interests without nuclear weapons, they would avoid the need for costly investments in dangerous new nuclear capabilities or replacements for existing weapons.” In a preface to the Report Dr Blix comments that “So long as any state has such weapons – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.
Notwithstanding the end of the Cold War balance of terror, stocks of such weapons remain extraordinarily and alarmingly high: some 27 000 in the case of nuclear weapons, of which around 12 000 are still actively deployed.” ... “Some of the current stagnation in global arms control and disarmament forums is the result of a paralysing requirement of consensus combined with an outdated system of bloc politics.
However, a more important reason is that the nuclear-weapon states no longer seem to take their commitment to nuclear disarmament seriously – even though this was an essential part of the NPT bargain, both at the treaty’s birth in 1968 and when it was extended indefinitely in 1995.” Attempts to push for a progressive removal of weapons of mass destruction have always been dismissed as unrealistic idealism in an unstable and dangerous world. Previous reviews to promote nuclear disarmament have been ineffective and ignored. The Palme commission of 1982; the report of the Canberra Commission on Elimination of Nuclear Weapons of 1996 sponsored by the Australian government; and the Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament in 1999 have not changed the resolve of the nuclear weapon states to maintain and enhance their own weapons capability, encouraging others to emulate them.
Last year a UN summit of Heads of States and Governments failed to adopt a single recommendation on how to attain further disarmament so as to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to more states and to terrorists. For nearly a decade work at the disarmament conference in Geneva has stood still. In 2005 the NPT review conference failed to make any progress. Yet the need for a sensible international effort to resolve the problems of weapons of mass destruction – not only nuclear, but also chemical and biological weapon - is now urgent at a time when many countries are now proposing to turn to nuclear power to meet the problems in energy supply that will come with a decline in oil output.
To follow the arguments in full the whole of the 230 page report and its 60 recommendations should be carefully considered. For brevity the synopsis from the report is reproduced here.
Synopsis WHY ACTION IS NECESSARY
· Nuclear, biological and chemical arms are the most inhumane of all weapons. Designed to terrify as well as destroy, they can, in the hands of either states or non state actors, cause destruction on a vastly greater scale than any conventional weapons, and their impact is far more indiscriminate and long-lasting. So long as any state has such weapons – especially nuclear arms – others will want them.
· So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.
· Notwithstanding the end of the Cold War balance of terror, stocks of such weapons remain extraordinarily and alarmingly high: some 27 000 in the case of nuclear weapons, of which around 12 000 are still actively deployed.
· Weapons of mass destruction cannot be uninvented.
But they can be outlawed, as biological and chemical weapons already have been, and their use made unthinkable. Compliance, verification and enforcement rules can, with the requisite will, be effectively applied.
And with that will, even the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is not beyond the world’s reach.
· Over the past decade, there has been a serious, and dangerous, loss of momentum and direction in disarmament and non-proliferation efforts. Treaty making and implementation have stalled and, as a new wave of proliferation has threatened, unilateral enforcement action has been increasingly advocated.
· In 2005 there were two loud wake-up calls in the failure of the NPT Review Conference and in the inability of the World Summit to agree on a single line about any WMD issue. It is critical for those calls to be heeded now.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission makes many specific and detailed recommendations throughout its report. The most important of them are summarized below.
1 Agree on general principles of action
· Disarmament and non-proliferation are best pursued through a cooperative rule-based international order, applied and enforced through effective multilateral institutions, with the UN Security Council as the ultimate global authority.
· There is an urgent need to revive meaningful negotiations, through all available intergovernmental mechanisms, on the three main objectives of reducing the danger of present arsenals, preventing proliferation, and outlawing all weapons of mass destruction once and for all.
· States, individually and collectively, should consistently pursue policies designed to ensure that no state feels a need to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
· Governments and relevant intergovernmental organizations and nongovernment actors should commence preparations for a World Summit on disarmament, non-proliferation and terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction to generate new momentum for concerted international action.
2 Reduce the danger of present arsenals: no use by states – no access by terrorists
· Secure all weapons of mass destruction and all WMDrelated material and equipment from theft or other acquisition by terrorists.
· Take nuclear weapons off high-alert status to reduce the risk of launching by error; make deep reductions in strategic nuclear weapons; place all non-strategic nuclear weapons in centralized storage; and withdraw all such weapons from foreign soil.
· Prohibit the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and phase out the production of highly enriched uranium.
· Diminish the role of nuclear weapons by making no-first-use pledges, by giving assurances not to use them against non-nuclear-weapon states, and by not developing nuclear weapons for new tasks.
3 Prevent proliferation: no new weapon systems – no new possessors
· Prohibit any nuclear-weapon tests by bringing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force.
· Revive the fundamental commitments of all NPT parties: the five nuclear-weapon states to negotiate towards nuclear disarmament and the non-nuclearweapon states to refrain from developing nuclear weapons.
· Recognize that countries that are not party to the NPT also have a duty to participate in the disarmament process.
· Continue negotiations with Iran and North Korea to achieve their effective and verified rejection of the nuclear-weapon option, while assuring their security and acknowledging the right of all NPT parties to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
· Explore international arrangements for an assurance of supply of enriched uranium fuel, and for the disposal of spent fuel, to reduce incentives for national facilities and to diminish proliferation risks.
4 Work towards outlawing all weapons of mass destruction once and for all
· Accept the principle that nuclear weapons should be outlawed, as are biological and chemical weapons, and explore the political, legal, technical and procedural options for achieving this within a reasonable time.
· Complete the implementation of existing regional nuclear-weaponfree zones and work actively to establish zones free of WMD in other regions, particularly and most urgently in the Middle East.
· Achieve universal compliance with, and effective implementation of, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and speed up the destruction of chemical weapon stocks.
· Achieve universal compliance with, and effective implementation of, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and improve cooperation between industry, scientists and governments to reinforce the ban on the development and production of biological weapons and to keep abreast of developments in biotechnology.
· Prevent an arms race in space by prohibiting any stationing or use of weapons in outer space. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 September 2006 )
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