Multilateral nuclear fuel supply guarantees & spent fuel management: what are the priorities?

Abstract

devices. To cope with this problem, some have advocated that enrichment and reprocessing facilities be constructed and operated under multilateral arrangements. Such an approach is generally viewed as effective in ensuring safe and reliable access to nuclear fuel and services at competitive market prices while strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime by removing incentives for countries to develop indigenous fuel cycle capabilities. It is interesting to note that all proposals for multinational fuel cycle facilities have thus far originated from “supplier states.” If multilateral fuel cycle arrangements have attracted only limited interest from “consumer states,” it must be in part because the existing market for enrichment services has been operating reliably. Otherwise, potential buyers would have explored more actively new ideas for ensuring fuel supply. Clearly, something more than market reliability is at issue here. If some consumer states fear that fuel supply could be disrupted for purely political reasons, others seem to fear that multilateral supply arrangements could serve as a pretext for depriving them of their rights to construct and operate fuel cycle facilities domestically. This paper posits that further improving the reliability of fuel supply is best achieved by giving priority to fuel leasing contracts, coupled with long-term generic export licenses, and last resort multilateral fuel supply arrangements. These arrangements are easier to implement in the short term, rather than much more complex multinational enrichment facilities. For neighboring countries starting nuclear power programs, setting up a fuel procurement consortium would provide safer and better fuel supplies than their individual participation in a multinational enrichment facility.