Former Senator Sam Nunn Explains How a New "Fuel Bank" Can Curb Nuclear Proliferation

The world may just have gotten a little bit safer.

In Kazakstan this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is opening a new facility that will serve as a bank for Low Enriched Uranium. If it works at intended, fewer countries around the world will feel the need to enrich their own uranium, meaning that fewer countries will possess the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.

This facility is known as the "LEU fuel bank" and its opening is the result of over a decade of work by my guest today, former US Senator (and longtime nuclear security advocate) Sam Nunn.

Credit: Nuclear Threat Initiative

The idea behind the LEU fuel bank is basically this: countries that want to use civilian nuclear power must either build their own enrichment facilities, or must purchase enriched uranium on the open market. The concern with the former is that facilities that enrich uranium for civilian purposes could also be used to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. The bank is basically an insurance policy t…