A new approach to Nuclear spent fuel management

CHARLES FERGUSON, CLIFFORD SINGER, JACK SPENCER and SHARON SQUASSONI state that the central planning approach to U.S. spent nuclear fuel management had been a glaring exception to the trend toward a market-driven energy sector and each of the three past approaches - breeding fuel, prompt burial and deep burn had failed due to what they view as inflexibility to changing economic and political conditions.
In a report of the Proliferation Prevention Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel: A market based solution", they envisage a market-driven approach that would fundamentally alter the notion of spent nuclear fuel from a liability as it is currently to an asset alongwith provisions of adequate financial incentives to states and communities hosting long-term spent fuel management facilities.
The key components of their proposal include payments into escrow funds for spent fuel management rather than to the government, reassessment of radio-isotope containment criteria, licenses for away-from-reactor storage facilities alongwith removal of restrictions on volumes and site duration, removal of the requirement for prompt burial, equal treatment of all states, allowing private sector multiple options on fuel storage and importing foreign spent fuel.
The authors state that this could enhance U.S' ability as a nuclear supplier to influence other countries' nuclear fuel cycle choices and enhance regional security and support nuclear non-proliferation initiatives.

Australia's strategic options

ROD LYON, Program Director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reviews the nuclear implications of the shifting Asian security environment in the backdrop of limited applicability of the Cold-War nuclear order and states that US allies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could go in for vigorous nuclear hedging and might even be tempted to cross the nuclear rubicon. In a report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “A delicate issue: Asia’s nuclear future” he states that Canberra could pursue a course allowing it to retain future options including strategies such as ‘ordering’ involving strengthened nuclear safeguards and ‘hedging’ involving enhancement of Australian capabilities in enrichment and reprocessing.

Non-proliferation and the G20

GREGORY SCHULTE, Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the U.S. National Defence University proposes the adoption of the G20 as a forum to advance non-proliferation and claims that an endorsement from G20 would carry greater diplomatic weight than that of the G8. In an article for Proliferation Analysis, "Fighting Nuclear Proliferation at 20", he argues that despite the G20 being more unwieldy than the G8, it would prove a better forum to start laying the framework for future initiatives on non-proliferation.