Year
1977
Abstract
I want to congratulate the Institute on a great Annual Meeting on a most timely subject, \"Safeguarding the Nuclear Fuel Cycle\". One of the issues constraining the full exploitation of nuclear energy to meet the world's energy needs today is the wide-spread concern over the adequacy of institutions and methodology for safeguarding the public against proliferation, sabotage, and terroristic activities by the diversion of nuclear material. Now President Carter seems to think that things are not very well in this province, and, as a consequence he has called for an indefinite postponement of breeder reactors and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. And there may or may not be other reasons for his action. In any event, this rejection of plutonium by the President on the grounds that the world is not yet equipped to handle it safely has enormous consequences. By the year 2000, it would put out of reach the energy equivalent of six years current free world petroleum production. This energy potential would lie idle as unburned U235 and plutonium locked in unreprocessed spent fuel elements. The President's ban would also lock away other potential energy equivalents of great magnitude which I shall detail later. Now it is obvious that such a monumental forebearance will prove financially precarious and physically discomforting to United States citizens. But in many nations of the world, it can make the vital difference between life and death to millions of people who live in an economy of basic near-subsistence. Therefore, a matter of considerable priority has to be the upgrading of safeguards technology and institutions to world-wide levels perceived to be acceptable so that these energy sources can be made available in the United States of America and elsewhere. This problem has several facets, but central to most of them is a need for accurate and reliable measurements of highly enriched uranium and plutonium -- measurements and standards that can be accepted with international confidence. The National Bureau of Standards has a modest proposal, a $3 million a year program to establish these standards and measurements. But to date, the program has received only limited funding through allocations of money by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Energy Research and Development Agency. This is instead of regular funding via the budget of the United States Department of Commerce flowing through to NBS. Now as a result of this situation, the program is not only underfunded at the present time, but such money as it gets is received from sources that may be seen by some as placing a cloud on the objectivity of the program. I am pleased to report that Congress may soon remedy this situation in the form of a rider to nuclear exports legislation now being considered.