Kazakhstan to host international uranium fuel bank

[jakeXT]

Source: Reuters

An international uranium fuel bank will open in Kazakhstan in two years, partly funded by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, after the board of the U.N. nuclear agency approved a hosting agreement on Thursday with the Central Asian country.

The scheme is designed to secure the supply of uranium for nuclear power plants should the commercial market be disrupted.

Advocates also see it as a way to dissuade countries from building enrichment facilities that might be misused to purify uranium to weapons-grade levels -- an issue that has bedeviled relations between Iran and the West for more than a decade.

“If the dozens of countries interested in nuclear energy also choose to pursue uranium enrichment, the risk of proliferation of dangerous nuclear materials and weapons would grow beyond the tipping point. This has been our experience with Iran," said Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the U.S.-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a non-governmental organization.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/11/us-kazakhstan-nuclear-iaea-idUSKBN0OR2CP20150611

[pscot]

1. What could possibly go wrong

[slumcamper]

2. HA! You beat me to the punch.

Such a stable repository for the world's enriched uranium! The brilliance of a thousand suns most certainly evident here. And Buffet?

This is too ludicrous to believe. More investigation is warranted.

[Igel]

3. What?

You're daring to question part of the Russian World?

Reprobate.

[pscot]

4. Maybe this has to do with sequestering iranian

fissionable materials. I read that the Russians are facilitating the Iran nuclear treaty deal by providing storage for hot stuff. Kazakhstan is the sort of middle ground that might be acceptable to the mullahs. Buffet may be in this as a Public Good. It's a novel concept, but if the President asked him to help, you can see where he might be willing. It would appeal to a Business Tycoon to meet St. Peter with something big on the positive side of the ledger.