Russia and US as global nuclear waste collectors?

Experts say that if Tehran agrees to the plan, it could end the current crisis and improve chances for a broader tightening of the existing nonproliferation regime, which has been badly strained by nuclear breakouts by Pakistan, India and North Korea in recent years. "Russia is hoping to to turn this situation from confrontation to compromise, and thus maintain its good relations with both the West and Iran," says Nikolai Kozyrev, an expert at the official Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, which trains Russian diplomats. "A great deal is at stake."

Russia has major economic interests, especially in the nuclear sphere, that would be threatened by any international sanctions regime or military action against Iran. The state-owned AtomStroiExport Co. is building an $800 million, 1,000-megawatt light reactor power station at Bushehr in southern Iran, which the Russians insist is a purely civilian project under legal supervision by the IAEA.

"Iran is a major business partner, a good ally, and a big buyer of our nuclear equipment," says Viktor Kremeniuk, deputy director of the official Institute of USA-Canada Studies in Moscow.

"In fact, Iran's purchases are one of the only things keeping Russia's nuclear industry afloat. Russia's policy establishment will face a serious dilemma if the current crisis with Iran worsens: Should we side with the West, or with Iran? I'm afraid the answer of many in Russia's elite would be to take Iran's side. In that case, our relations with the West - which are already under strain - could slide into a new cold war."

Experts say success with Iran will be crucial if the international community is to develop the means to head-off other countries that might want to develop nuclear weapons in future. The question becomes especially acute in a world of energy shortages, where clean and reliable nuclear power is starting to look like an attractive alternative to costly fossil fuels.

"The time of skepticism about nuclear energy - the Chernobyl syndrome - is over, and in coming decades we will probably see a renaissance of nuclear energy around the world," says Anton Khlopkov, deputy director of the independent PIR Center in Moscow, which specializes in nuclear issues.

"In several years there could be as many as 20 countries with the basic know-how, that could give them the possibility to develop nuclear weapons. So, the kind of cooperation being proposed between the US and Russia could be an important tool for strengthening the nonproliferation regime."

For the Kremlin, which assumed chairmanship of the Group of 8 leading industrial democracies this year on a pledge to promote global "energy security," the diplomatic standoff over Iran presents a tough challenge and a huge opportunity.

"Putin has a grand energy strategy, which includes making Russia a reliable supplier of oil and gas to the world market, and putting it at the center of developing the global nuclear power industry," says Mr. Kremeniuk. "Tightening the nuclear non-proliferation regime through greater cooperation, if it succeeds, is one thing that can be good for Russia, and good for the world."

Others note that the idea of providing fuel to - and taking spent fuel back from - energy-seeking countries is not new, and is one way of dealing with the reality that fuel enrichment technology - a process that can lead to material needed for development of nuclear weapons - has become more available.

That explains the growing interest in dealing with the spent fuels of nuclear power production. The International Atomic Energy Agency under director Mohamed ElBaradei has also proposed a program to supply fuel and take in spent fuels for storage.

"With about a 10-year supply of uranium there's a glut of fuel for ... reactors, and that's what's driving proposals like ElBaradei's," says Kimball. The IAEA proposal includes a five-year freeze on construction of fuel enrichment facilities while the international community works out the details of a fuel supply program - one the IAEA would administer.

The least objectionable part of the proposal, experts say, is the idea of a few secure fuel suppliers taking spent fuel back in for storage. But US experts look back at the domestic controversy over the Yucca Mountain storage facility and say such a plan for internationally produced fuels would require changes in US law - and would certainly raise new protests.

Page: 1 | 2