Experts Worry New Uranium Enrichment Technology Poses Proliferation Risk
By Rob Margetta, CQ Staff
A new method for enriching uranium that General Electric and Hitachi are developing could open the door for nuclear fuel production facilities that are smaller and require less power than today's. But according to some experts that technology could also result in a new proliferation problem.
The technology in question is known as "laser isotope separation," and it involves using specialized lasers and compounds to make low-enrichment nuclear fuel for power plants. Through the subsidiary called Global Laser Enrichment, GE and Hitachi have proposed to create an enrichment facility using their "SILEX" laser system in Wilmington, N.C. That facility is currently in the regulatory process, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviewing the companies' licensing request.
But experts say the very aspects of laser enrichment that is appealing to the corporate sector -- the promise of smaller, relatively low-powered facilities -- would also be attractive to countries and other political entities trying to hide the fact that they are developing material for nuclear weapons.
Enrichment facilities using earlier, gaseous diffusion technology are large, use a lot of power and are easy to spot, while those using more modern centrifuges have a smaller footprint and power demands, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman told an audience at George Washington University's Elliot School of International Affairs Monday. Laser-based facilities could be even easier to hide, he said.
Ahearn was joined by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Science and Technology Fellow Charles Ferguson and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Associate James Acton, both of whom were among the experts who sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, asking it to hold a hearing on the Wilmington proposal and saying the NRC license review is flawed because it only considers the facility's physical security, not its potential impact on proliferation.
"If the United States uses [laser enrichment] technology and demonstrates that it is a commercially viable technology, it will dangerously undermine U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts by making it much more difficult to dissuade other countries from acquiring this technology, and may be used as a justification by countries seeking to hide their enrichment activities," the letter said. "Previous laser enrichment research and laboratory-sized activities went undetected for several years in South Korea and Iran.
The idea of laser enrichment has been around for decades, but it has never solidified into workable, commercial technology. Ferguson called it a "difficult, risky" venture for companies investing capital, but noted that the billions spent on development so far indicate that the system would have a high payoff for anyone who can commercialize it.
As of the late 1990s, laser enrichment seemed to have a low potential for the development of highly enriched uranium, he said. But Acton said a recent IAEA report said that laser enrichment would be easy to convert from enriching uranium to fuel into a way of enriching uranium for weapons.
Both noted that any discussion of that potential dangers from laser enrichment are hung up by the fact that the project's specifics are all classified.
"It may have changed over the past couple of years," Ferguson said of laser enrichment's potential to produce material that could be used for nuclear weapons. "But we don't know."
The classification means that another variable in the equation is just how efficient and successful the SILEX system of enrichment is. If it works well, Acton said, other countries are almost sure to want it, due to factors ranging from the desire for prestige to wanting to hedge their bets against potential enemies when it comes to nuclear secrets.
"If the U.S. goes down this route of laser enrichment, other countries are likely to follow."
And while technology poses a barrier to proliferation -- the laser enrichment process is a complicated one -- Ferguson said it's not insurmountable, and questioned whether success on the part of GE and Hitachi would trigger a "corporate arms race."
"Once smart people know that something can be done, then if they dedicate enough financial resources to it, enough talent, them they will get it done," Ferguson said.
And that factor is not limited to countries on the same socioeconomic plane as the United States, he said. He noted that experts believed that Pakistan was too "backward" to pose a proliferation risk, and then they discovered the now-notorious actions of rogue nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.
Acton called for a broader debate, one that questions whether the NRC licensing procedure should take proliferations concerns into account. Since the NRC is a regulatory body that avoids policy, he said Congress might be the proper forum for such a discussion.
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