A nuclear fuel bank is reserve of low enriched uranium (LEU) for countries that need a backup source of LEU to fuel their nuclear reactors. Countries that do have enrichment technology would donate enriched fuel to a "bank", from which countries not possessing enrichment technology would obtain fuel for their power reactors. LEU banks are meant to be nuclear fuel providers "in the event of unforeseen, non-commercial disruption" to the supplies, and are regarded an important international effort to "prevent nuclear proliferation and dissuading countries from building uranium enrichment facilities by guaranteeing access to LEU for fuel use should other sources fail." The concept of providing an assured supply of nuclear fuel, and thus avoiding the need for countries to build indigenous nuclear fuel production capabilities, has long been proposed as a way to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and, eventually, eliminate them altogether. Austria, Russia, the European Union, the United States, and others have supported various concepts of an international fuel bank. Many non-nuclear-weapon states have been reluctant to embrace any of these proposals for varying reasons.
Overview Enrichment technology is primarily used to create enriched nuclear fuel, but it can also be used to create weapons-grade nuclear material. The main goal of a fuel bank is therefore to minimize the risk of further nuclear weapons proliferation by removing the need for countries to possess enrichment technology. The proposed fuel bank would assure a back-up supply for power reactors throughout the world on a non-discriminatory, non-political basis, reducing the need for countries to develop their own uranium enrichment technologies which could also be used for nuclear weapons development. The IAEA's former Director General Dr. ElBaradei confirmed this, saying that the importance of nuclear fuel banks is "by providing reliable access to fuel at competitive market prices, we remove the need for countries to develop indigenous fuel cycle capabilities. In so doing, we could go a long way towards addressing current concerns about the dissemination of sensitive fuel cycle technologies."
Advocates Dr. ElBaradei, who was director of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1997 to 2009, called for the establishment of a nuclear fuel bank to provide peaceful access to nuclear energy without raising questions about dual-use technology. "Every country that would like to get the fuel, that would like to get the technology, the reactor, will get that, but not necessarily developing their own enrichment facility. And assurance of supply mechanism should be reliable, should be apolitical, should be based solely on non-proliferation criteria," he said. In his acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. ElBaradei also said the establishment of an international fuel bank would remove the incentive for each country to develop its own fuel cycle. "We should then be able to agree on a moratorium on new national facilities, and to begin work on multinational arrangements for enrichment, fuel production, waste disposal and reprocessing," he said. Joseph Cirincione, the director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in 2006 that an international fuel bank could start reforms at the international level. "If we handle it properly, Iran might be the trigger for resolving this problem that troubles all nations relying on nuclear power. Iran, ironically, could be the catalyst for creating a fundamentally new system of how we produce and sell nuclear fuel," he said. The Iran nuclear deal framework of 2015 did not include the idea of a fuel bank. U.S. Senators Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh, both of Indiana, have also advocated for a nuclear fuel bank. In an op-ed published in the Chicago Tribune, they wrote that what is needed is "a new international non-proliferation standard that prevents countries from using the guise of nuclear energy to develop nuclear weapons". Lugar and Bayh argued this was imperative because "the coming surge in demand for nuclear power will lead more and more nations to seek their own enrichment facilities", and jointly called for the establishment of an International Nuclear Fuel Bank, controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In 2009, the formation of a nuclear fuel bank was endorsed by U.S. President Barack Obama in a speech in Prague: "And we should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an International Fuel Bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risk of proliferation. That must be the right of every national that renounces nuclear weapons, especially for developing countries embarking on peaceful programs." On 29/08/2017, An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) project aimed at providing confidence to countries about the availability of nuclear power fuel reached a key milestone on Tuesday towards its establishment, with the inauguration in Kazakhstan of a facility where low-enriched uranium (LEU) will be stored.
Controversy Developing nations, including a number in the Non-Aligned Movement, have expressed reservations about mechanisms for assurance of supply and have been critical of additional criteria for accessing the fuel banks. Some reasons that non-nuclear weapon states have been reluctant to embrace these proposals include:
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