ICAN Australia briefing – December 2009

This briefing is based on a larger position paper prepared by Associate Professor Tilman Ruff for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) Australia in February 2009. To obtain a copy of the comprehensive paper, please contact the ICAN Australia office: info@icanw.org.

Uranium mining and nuclear power

“In the eight years I served in the White House, every weapons proliferation issue we faced was linked with a civilian reactor program.”

   Al Gore,Guardian Weekly 2006(25):17-8 (9 June 2006)

Nuclear weapons abolition is likely to be achieved and sustained more readily and quickly in a world in which nuclear power generation is being phased out. This is because the material and capacity to produce nuclear power is intrinsically linked to the capacity to produce fissile material usable for nuclear weapons. 

The body of evidence on the proliferation dangers associated with nuclear power generation is vast and compelling – these proliferation dangers are central to ICAN’s mission.

Creating new proliferation risks

ICAN acknowledges and shares the concerns of our partner organisations that nuclear power poses risks of a scale and nature not associated with any other means of producing electricity.

These include the risk of permanent environmental damage from accidents and terrorist attack; the long term environmental and security challenges of keeping huge quantities of highly radioactive waste safe; the environmental and proliferation dangers associated with reprocessing of spent fuel and use of plutonium in reactor fuel; the non-renewable nature of uranium, increased risk of leukaemia for children living near even normally-operating nuclear power plants and increased risk of cancer for nuclear industry workers. A conventional attack on a reactor or spent fuel storage facility could produce more and longer-lived radioactive fallout than a nuclear explosion.

Achieving and sustaining a world free of nuclear weapons will require the nuclear fuel chain to be managed very differently in the future. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime is based on the assumption that it is possible to separate civilian and military uses of nuclear technology. ICAN has reservations about this assumption.

The peaceful atom can become the military atom

Unless much tougher barriers are established between civilian and military nuclear use, it is impossible to guarantee there is a real barrier between a 'peaceful atom and a 'military 'atom'. Fissile materials – highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium – are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear disarmament.

The most problematic aspects of the nuclear fuel chain from a proliferation point of view are uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent reactor fuel. Any government that has the material, facilities and expertise to enrich uranium to reactor-grade has everything it needs to enrich uranium further to weapons grade.

Plutonium is inevitably produced inside any reactor as uranium atoms absorb neutrons. Plutonium of almost any grade, extracted from spent nuclear fuel, can be used to make nuclear weapons. Reprocessing plants handle large mounts of extremely radioactive and hazardous material and are difficult to effectively safeguard.

Funds directed away from safer energy

At a time of urgent need to transition to sustainable, renewable and climate friendly forms of energy production, the nuclear industry is soaking up financial resources that should be allocated to research and large-scale rollout of safer technologies that do not expand the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation or create a radioactive legacy for hundreds of thousands of years. Technologies that generate additional or new long-term environmental and health risks, such as nuclear power, should not be included in the energy mix. The two greatest challenges to the health and survival of humanity and our world are nuclear weapons and climate change. It makes no sense to try to fix one by worsening the other – we must address both.

Impacts on Indigenous communities

Expansion of the nuclear fuel chain that leads to nuclear weapons production brings particular hazards to indigenous communities around the world, many of whom are already disadvantaged. From nuclear testing to uranium mining and the transport and dumping of radioactive wastes, indigenous communities have often borne the brunt of adverse environmental and health effects.

Fissile materials add further risks

ICAN believes production of fissile materials must be phased out. Fissile materials should be eliminated where possible. Where this is not possible, fissile materials must be stored under strict international control. The NPT Article IV, which speaks of the ‘inalienable right’ of states to pursue essentially all aspects of the nuclear fuel chain short of building weapons, is not compatible with a nuclear weapons free world.

ICAN therefore advocates: 

• The United Nations should control all uranium enrichment capacity through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
• Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) should be phased out of civilian uses and naval propulsion altogether
• Reprocessing of spent fuel to separate plutonium should be stopped and outlawed
• Stocks of fissile materials should be placed under international control and, wherever possible, eliminated
• The IAEA should be given greater resources in order to strengthen nuclear safeguards
• The promotion of nuclear power should be removed from the IAEA’s mandate
• Countries should have access to technical assistance with renewable energy technologies

Reducing the dangers associated with uranium mining and exports

Current stockpiles of uranium are sufficient for all medical, scientific research and industrial needs for many millennia to come. Future political and social changes are impossible to judge with certainty. Selling uranium to countries with no current weapons aspirations does not mean that subsequent governments or terrorist organisations will not pose a risk. Decisions on international uranium sales can only be realistically based on the risks inherent in the materials themselves.

While uranium is exported, ICAN advocates placing specific conditions on countries receiving uranium from Australia, which significantly reduce the risk of Australian uranium contributing to the production of nuclear weapons.

These conditions include:

• Exclusion of states possessing nuclear weapons
• Exclusion of states that are either not party to or not compliant with their obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including Article VI disarmament obligations
• Exclusion of states which have not signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
• Exclusion of States which do not have full-scope IAEA safeguards and an Additional Protocol in place, with a consistent record of compliance
• Exclusion of uranium enrichment in facilities not under international control
• Exclusion of states which reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium
• Exclusion of states which do not have excellent standards of nuclear regulation and safety
• Application of safeguards to all stages of the nuclear fuel chain
• Exclusion of states which do not comply with the best available storage of radioactive waste 
• Regular review and reporting on compliance with the measures outlined above. 

Recommendations for a consistent Australian nuclear policy

ICAN recommends consistency in Australia's nuclear policies. This is particularly relevant in the context of Australia's strengthened commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the recent report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. 

For more information:

ICAN recommendations: please contact the ICAN Australia office

ICANS full response on this issue: please contact the ICAN Australia office

International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2009

The Panel concludes in relation to nuclear power:

“…serious consideration should be given to the possibility of phasing out reprocessing plants altogether. …as an adjunct to any nuclear disarmament treaty, it would be essential to create international institutions to operate and safeguard both enrichment and reprocessing plants (if they cannot be eliminated altogether) and spent fuel storage sites. … Even with stringent and equitable new rules to govern nuclear power, its continued operation and certainly any global expansion will impose serious proliferation risks in the transition to nuclear disarmament. A phase-out of civilian nuclear energy would provide the most effective and enduring constraint on proliferation risks in a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2009