THORIUM AS AN ENERGY SOURCE - Opportunities for Norway ...

Thorium as an Energy Source - Opportunities for Norway
9. NON-PROLIFERATION
There are currently 9 countries that are known to have nuclear weapons. These are USA, Russia
(previously USSR), United Kingdom, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.
Two of these, Israel and North Korea, have no civil nuclear energy. In the other 7 countries the
decisions to build weapons were made prior to the development of civil nuclear energy. One
exception is Pakistan, where civil nuclear energy was started in 1972, before the weapons
program of the 1980s. However, the fissile materials for the weapons were obtained from a
separate enrichment industry that was unconnected with the civil nuclear energy program.
The prevention of nuclear war is of utmost importance. The security threat posed by the
proliferation of nuclear weapons has lead to the establishment of the international nuclear nonproliferation
regime which comprises a network of treaties, institutions and the safeguards
inspections regime. The cornerstone is the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT), supported by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The NPT aims at
preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, advancing and eventually achieving nuclear
disarmament and facilitating the peaceful use of nuclear energy. A total of 189 countries have
joined the NPT; India, Pakistan and Israel have never joined and North-Korea claims to have
withdrawn. The NPT has been and still is an important pillar of Norwegian foreign policy [151].
Today, civil nuclear energy is employed in 31 countries with 439 reactors all together and there
are plans for another 200 reactors within the next 20 years. Nearly all of the plans are for
countries which already have nuclear weapons or where the non-proliferation measures are well
developed.
Nuclear fission bombs are manufactured either from uranium-235 (U-235) or from plutonium-239
(Pu-239). U-235 is produced by enriching natural uranium to over 90 wt% of U-235 either by
diffusion or by centrifuge methods. Ordinary light-water reactors need enrichment up to 3 - 5wt%
of U-235 for the fuel to be useable. The spent fuel reprocessing and recycling needed for civil
nuclear energy may also lead to diversion of fissile material. Thus it is obviously necessary to
have strict international control of the fuel cycle under the auspices of the IAEA in order to
prevent any future transfer of fissile material to the weapons sector.
One project initiated by IAEA is the International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and
Fuel Cycles (INPRO). The objectives of INPRO are to help to ensure that sustainable nuclear
energy is available in the 21st century, bring together all interested IAEA member states to
achieve innovations in reactors and fuel cycles with inherent safety, minimizing risks of
proliferation, and create a process that involves relevant stakeholders as well as ongoing
initiatives at the national and international level.
Nowadays, civil nuclear energy is developed very openly, often in international collaborations.
One such collaboration is the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) where the ambition is to
develop reactors without risks for diversion of fissile materials to the weapons sector. The breeder
reactors considered in the GIF collaboration do not require enrichment facilities and the planned
reprocessing is planned to take place on site and include several unseparated trans-uranium
elements not suitable for bomb manufacture.
Several initiatives are currently being discussed for a stricter control of the fuel cycle. One of
them is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative proposed by the United States.
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