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 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.
"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.
"[12] 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.
[13] 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.
Russia also agreed not to provide an enrichment plant and terminated cooperation on several other nuclear-related technologies, including laser isotope separation.
The report was produced by the Committee on Atomic Energy, headed by Dean Acheson and David Lilienthal, and was mostly written by scientist Robert Oppenheimer.
[16] The report recommended that an international body, such as the United Nations, have control over both atomic materials and the means of producing nuclear energy.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called on the United States with the Soviet Union "to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international Atomic Energy Agency" that would then "devise methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind.
However, the concept that the IAEA would serve as a bank of nuclear materials, drawing down US and Soviet stocks below the level where either could launch a knock-out blow against the other, languished.
During this period the U.S. Congress preferred to supply nuclear material directly to foreign partners in bilateral agreements, thus bypassing the IAEA and applying U.S. safeguards to the transaction instead.
[28] Former IAEA Director General Dr. ElBaradei gave an international expert group the task of coming up with possible multilateral approaches to better control the sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Dr. ElBaradei said that in recent years the nuclear non-proliferation regime has been under tremendous stress and noted the key is fairness and recognizing the interests of all parties.
[37] In addition to the two fuel banks, the Russian Federation has also established an International Uranium Enrichment Center (IUEC) located at Angarsk.
[38] Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA from 1997 to 2009, has also suggested that no State should be required to give up its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty regarding any parts of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The proposals ranged from providing backup assurances of supply to establishing an IAEA-controlled low-enriched uranium reserve or setting up international enrichment centers.
The IAEA Board of Governors approved the plan to set up the fuel bank in December 2010, but made no choice of the site at that time.
[42] Robert J. Einhorn, Special US Advisor on Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said the Obama Administration has supported international fuel banks but that "this issue will come up at the May NPT Review Conference, but this is not the focus of" the Nuclear Security Summit.
[33] Germany has proposed the creation of a multilateral uranium enrichment center with extraterritorial status, which would operate on a commercial basis as a new supplier in the market.
[48] Former Senator Sam Nunn, a co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said in a speech announcing the NTI pledge that "we envision that this stockpile will be available as a last-resort fuel reserve for nations that have made the sovereign choice to develop their nuclear energy based on foreign sources of fuel supply services-and therefore have no indigenous enrichment facilities."
“It’s an issue of trust, and there’s been a lot of fraying of relationships between IAEA states,” said Curtis, Deputy Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton.
[51] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Tehran places importance on international nuclear cooperation, including "Iran's presence in the global fuel bank."
The fuel would be stored at a multinational uranium-enrichment facility in the Siberian city of Angarsk and would be sufficient for two reactor-loads of low-enriched uranium.
[40] In November 2009, the IAEA Board of Governors approved the Russian proposal to set up a low enriched uranium reserve available to Member States upon request from the Agency.
[55][56] The "Six-Country Concept" was proposed by France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, the UK, and the U.S. to provide reliable access to nuclear fuel.
The proposal would require customer states to forego sensitive indigenous nuclear facilities, and if a supply disruption were to occur the recipient country would be able to approach the IAEA to facilitate new arrangements with other suppliers as long as nonproliferation conditions had been met – these conditions would include implementation of the Additional Protocol and safety and protection standards being satisfied.
From this perspective, whatever advantage is offered by a fuel bank, for example, is reduced if the suppliers can deny access.As INFCE came to an end, similar concerns led the IAEA Board of Governors to establish the Committee on Assurances of Supply (CAS) in 1980.
While CAS discussed a wide range of assurance of supply issues and proposals over 7 years, it did not reach agreement, and lapsed into abeyance.