Category Archives: IAEA

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Not only did the IAEA find “anthropogenic natural uranium particles”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox at the site of Syria’s apparent graphite-moderated reactor, “they found particles of graphite”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE51I45R20090219, according to Reuters and other outlets.

But perhaps it was a secret military pencil factory.

OK, OK, the jury’s still out. But anyone who said that it couldn’t be a graphite-moderated reactor because no graphite was found at the site will have to cross that one off their list.

IAEA Iran Report Preview

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IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei made some public remarks. It’s a mixed picture.

Update: see “the actual report”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/158/Iran.pdf.

Highlights from “Reuters”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE51G5JL20090217:

“They haven’t really been adding centrifuges, which is a good thing,” ElBaradei said at a think-tank in Paris, adding: “Our assessment is that it’s a political decision.”

[snip]

“Natanz is supposed to have 50,000 centrifuges. Right now they have 5,000,” he said, adding that Iran had not added a “significant” number of centrifuges.

[snip]

“No, I’m not obviously happy with the degree of cooperation … They shut off any cooperation with the agency over the past few months,” said ElBaradei, who has for years called on Iran to do more to help his agency’s investigations.

“Iran right now is not providing any access or any clarification with regard to those studies or the whole possible military dimension,” he added.

ElBaradei played down fears of an imminent Iranian bomb.

“They will have probably in a year or so enough low enriched uranium which, if converted to highly enriched uranium, and if they have the know-how to weaponise it and to deliver it, then they can have one nuclear weapon,” he said.

But many other steps would have to be taken to produce a weapon, such as walking out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelling U.N. nuclear inspectors and mastering the technology to produce a nuclear explosion, he said.

“If I go by the intelligence community in the U.S., they are saying that they still have 2-5 years to be able to do that — to develop a weapon — which to me means that we have at least enough time for diplomacy,” he said.

Related: ElBaradei’s last term is winding down. The AP’s George Jahn “profiles”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiRSE2djCKxpy0LYT6SaecqOfCyQD96E21DO0 the two leading candidates for IAEA Director-General.

U.S. to Ratify Additional Protocol

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A few days ago , Bush “signed the instrument of ratification”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/dec/113550.htm for the Additional Protocol to the U.S. IAEA safeguards agreement which, some of you may recall, the Clinton administration signed in 1998.

Some of you may also recall that the administration has been all about urging everyone else to conclude additional protocols.

Anyway, according to the State Department, “ratification will be completed with deposit of the instrument with the IAEA” – an event which should happen sometime this coming week.

Rumsfeld Reports on IAEA

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A few weeks back, Rumsfeld “gave an interview”:http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_466856.html where he discussed proliferation and international institutions.

He said:

Q: What you said just a minute ago about, you know, this isn’t something that one country can solve, it sounded awfully close to kind of stepping back from what we’ve been saying all along, which is everything’s on the table.

RUMSFELD: Oh, I’m not stepping back from anything like that or anything the president said. No, I was just characterizing proliferation –as something that no one nation can deal with. I mean, it just takes a lot of countries to prevent the proliferation of these dangerous technologies to other people.

And it takes 21st century rules. I mean, we were working to stop a bunch of missiles going into a Middle Eastern country. And if you’ll recall, the ship was stopped, they found the missiles, and they ended up having to let the ship go, and the missiles go because there was no law or rule that would permit them from being — to be stopped. And we had a maritime interdiction system that was available at that time to do that.

But the world has not adjusted to the 21st century, and we’re still functioning with institutions that were fashioned at the juncture of the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, that have stood us in good stead a long time. But this new century is going to require institutions to be either significantly adjusted or new ones to be fashioned, new arrangements to be fashioned. And we think of cyber warfare, the damage that could be done to countries. The rules — the guidelines and the procedures and the legitimacy of certain types of behavior in that area haven’t been thought through well.

Right. I can’t think of anything that the IAEA has accomplished since the end of the Cold War except verifying that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program, sussing out the details of Iran’s nuclear program, helping to investigate the Khan network, and helping to uncover North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Obviously, we need to tweak existing export controls and do something to deal with the spread of enrichment and reprocessing facilities.

RE: the So San incident, I would add the following, which I wrote about “here”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_01-02/yemen_janfeb03.asp

bq. Fleischer said that the United States had the authority to stop the ship because it was unflagged but that Washington decided to release the ship because it lacked “clear authority to seize the shipment.” Fleischer also suggested that Yemen’s status as an ally in anti-terrorism efforts was an important factor in the decision, saying that Yemen “does not provide a threat to the United States.”

I’ll go back to expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song…

Geek Check

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One tell-tale sign is if you saw “this”:http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?sf1=identifiers&st1=9264024255 and were like “Sweet, the new OECD/IAEA Red Book is out.”

Which isn’t to say that _I_ said that….I will simply note that I do not yet have a copy.

According to “this press release:”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html

Global uranium resources are more than adequate to meet projected requirements, according to the latest edition of a world reference guide on uranium resources published just recently.

Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand — also called the “Red Book” — estimates the total identified amount of conventional uranium stock, which can be mined for less than USD 130 per kg, to be about 4.7 million tonnes. Based on the 2004 nuclear electricity generation rate of demand the amount is sufficient for 85 years, the study states. Fast reactor technology would lengthen this period to over 2500 years.

However, world uranium resources in total are considered to be much higher. Based on geological evidence and knowledge of uranium in phosphates the study considers more than 35 million tonnes is available for exploitation.

The spot price of uranium has also increased fivefold since 2001, fuelling major new initiatives and investment in exploration. Worldwide exploration expenditures in 2004 totalled over US$ 130 million, an increase of almost 40% compared to 2002, and close to US$ 200 million in 2005. This can be expected to lead to further additions to the uranium resource base. A significant number of new mining projects have also been announced that could substantially boost the world’s uranium production capacity.

In the longer term, continuing advances in nuclear technology will allow a substantially better utilisation of the uranium resources. Reactor designs are being developed and tested that are capable of extracting more than 30 times the energy from the uranium than today’s reactors.

IAEA DDG Yuri Sokolov had more to say “here.”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/DDGs/2006/sokolov01062006.html

One should also ask “Brian Stiglitz”:http://datevideoguy.com/index.htm for his opinion…

_Jeffrey adds_: You can just download the read-only version and disable the security features. Not that I would do such a thing.

Iran: The Verification Trap

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The Bush administration may be laying the ground work to sabotage any deal that the EU-3 conclude with Iran regarding the suspension of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

The grounds? The deal is unverifiable.

Obviously, we would all like to see as strong a deal as possible and it’s hard to be against verification. But what the administration is now saying regarding verification could form the basis for either

bq. 1. Arguing that no suspension of Iran’s enrichment program is verifiable, or
2. Pushing for a verification regime that is so intrusive that Iran won’t agree to it.

Bush spoke to this more than once before the IAEA Board of Governors adopted its latest Iran resolution.

For instance, “he said November 26”:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041126.html that “the only good deal is one that’s verifiable. And I look forward to talking to the leaders of those countries, if they can get Iran to agree to a deal, to make sure that it’s verifiable.”

Well, there’s a bit of a problem. Besides the obvious fact that there’s no such thing as a 100% verifiable agreement, the administration has been saying that it is impossible to verify any agreement with Iran.

Take, for example, this idea that the administration was kicking around prior to the IAEA board’s June meeting. A State Department official “told _Arms Control Today_”:”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_05/IranIAEA.asp in June that the United States was thinking about encouraging the board to say it “cannot verify” Iran’s suspension of its centrifuge program because of Tehran’s demonstrated ability to manufacture relevant components at various locations throughout the country.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei alluded to the verification issue in his June report to the board, “noting”:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-34.pdf that “some of the activities subject to suspension, such as component production, are inherently difficult to verify.” ElBaradei added that the IAEA “cannot provide any assurance” that components are not being produced at undeclared Iranian sites.

(_Right, You can hide an enrichment facility just about anywhere_.)

Detecting small, concealed centrifuge facilities is very difficult. And the Bush Administration is “convinced”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/Iran.asp that Iran has more concealed nuclear facilities. Can you think of a verification scheme that Iran would sign up to and also satisfy the Bush administration?

It is tempting to argue that the UN Security Council should give the IAEA Iraq-style inspection powers, but those wide-ranging powers did “precisely nothing”:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html to satisfy this administration.

Getting the most verifiable deal possible obviously ought to be a priority for the EU-3, but watch for the administration to say “Hey, we supported the deal, but the Iranians just wouldn’t agree to verification.”

Ick.