Kazakhstan Spearheads Nuclear Non-Proliferation Efforts With Opening Of World’s 1st Low-Enriched Uranium Bank

Kazakhstan once held one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals and was the primary testing grounds for Soviet nuclear weapons. Today, the Caspian region and Central Asian country are still rich in radioactivity – as the world's leading uranium producer, it controls well over 30 percent of world production – but for altogether different purposes.

On August 29, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) commissioned the world’s first low enriched uranium bank at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Oskemen, in eastern Kazakhstan. Technically owned and controlled by the IAEA, up to 90 metric tons of low enriched uranium, suitable to make fuel for a light water nuclear reactor, will be stored at the facility.

"Over the years of independence, we have made a swift journey from owning the world’s fourth arsenal to becoming the world leader in global non-proliferation [of nuclear weapons],” Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at the facility’s inauguration ceremony, handing a symbolic key to the IAEA’s Director General Yukiya Amano.

The idea of establishing an international bank for low enriched uranium deposits dates back to the early 1950s, but the impetus to materialize the idea developed out of controversies surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.

For years, officials in Tehran claimed that Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities were for peaceful purposes only, arguing they were needed to fuel nuclear power plants and produce medical isotopes for treating cancer patients. These explanations were regarded as dubious, however, by countries like the US, since Iran’s centrifuge programs produced far more enriched uranium than is needed for electricity production and medical purposes. In 2010, the US and other countries looking to restrain Iran’s nuclear activities offered to help it purchase medical isotopes on the international market.

The IAEA’s bank, costing $150 million, had been approved by its Board of Directors and received its first funding in 2010. The American business mogul and philanthropist Warren Buffet personally donated $50 million, saying that year it was a “pleasure” to write out a check to fund what he called “an investment in a safer world and an essential tool in reducing nuclear dangers.”

Buffett had offered the money in 2006, with the stipulation that he’d hand it over if the IAEA could raise another $100 million from one or more countries. The IAEA took up Buffet’s challenge and secured funding from more than 29 countries. The US has provided nearly $50 million in federal financial support, which was pledged by the George W. Bush administration. Other donors include the governments of Kazakhstan, Norway, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and more than two dozen countries in the European Union.

The facility, which sits near Kazakhstan’s border with Russia, is stockpiled with deposits of low-enriched uranium, purchased by the IAEA to be used for fuel in civilian reactors but not an ingredient for nuclear weapons. It ultimately serves two purposes:  First, it acts as a last-resort mechanism for countries that need nuclear material for power plants in the event of an unforeseen disruption to low enriched uranium supplies. The bank also helps convince countries that do not have uranium enrichment facilities to not develop them, thereby strengthening global nonproliferation efforts.

While the bank helps meet peaceful nuclear objectives, its host country is no stranger to the darker and more violent sides of radioactivity.

Having conducted more than 450 open-air detonations in an area the size of Belgium inside Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons left an indelible mark on Kazakhstanis, both psychologically and physically. Today, more than 25 years after the last Soviet test in 1989, residents still suffer from radiation-related illnesses.

In 1991, when the country became independent, it inherited some of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Because Kazakhstanis understood very well their perils, the government voluntarily gave them up and staunchly adopted a policy of non-proliferation. Officials ordered the closing down of the Semipalatinsk nuclear range, located about 220 kilometers west of Oskemen, and voluntarily renounced what was one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals.

“Since then, we have worked tirelessly to encourage other countries to follow our lead and build the world in which the threat of nuclear weapons belongs to history,” Nazarbayev said at last week’s ceremony.

The world free from nuclear weapons does not necessitate one free from the benefits of nuclear power, however, which has zero carbon emissions.

A total of 438 nuclear power reactors provide about 11 percent of the world's electricity. Thirty countries around the globe use nuclear power and more are expected to do so in coming decades, according to the IAEA, given the limited capacity of non-renewable resources like oil and natural gas.

"The global economic life is drastically changing, but even the most advanced digital economy needs energy, a lot of energy. It is high time to remember that uranium has millions of times more energy concentration than all traditional energy sources,” Nazarbayev said. “This means that nuclear power is both alternative and more efficient than others.”

Given its history and experience with the nuclear material, Kazakhstan has been a staunch supporter of building an international consensus on nuclear issues and strengthening international agreements. Nazarbayev has encouraged other Central Asia countries to declare the region a nuclear-free zone, and use their collective influence in international forums to improve nuclear safety.

At the same time, the 77-year old president has also been critical of the world’s nine nuclear weapons states as well as the signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A landmark international agreement signed by 191 countries, its objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

“There are no concrete steps against those who violate it. Specifically, the member states of the nuclear club fail to disclose voluntarily the information about their nuclear programs and ban others from having, testing and spreading it,” Nazarbayev said. “But they ask other countries for comprehensive information,” he added, blaming the global stockpiling of more than 16,000 nuclear weapons on a lack of trust among world powers like Russia and the US.

"Stability and nuclear security in the twenty first century depend, first of all, on nuclear powers. Relations between them are of key and critical importance to humanity. Today, we are concerned about intensifying confrontation between the USA and Russia over sanctions," Nazarbayev said.

Kazakhstan is willing to host a global summit on nuclear security, sometime next year, which marks 50 years since the finalization of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"The future of the global summit on nuclear security, held at the initiative of the USA, remains uncertain. Kazakhstan is ready to initiate the resumption of the summit so that it is held in Astana," Nazarbayev said.