Controls on Nuclear Weapons and Fuel: Part 1

This afternoon we turn first to the nuclear fuel cycle preventing this spread of enrichment and reprocessing and Jim has distributed his paper and he will now give us some thoughts. This part of enrichment and reprocessing is not a new problem. It's been well known since the beginning of nuclear power. A country that can enriched uranium reprocessed kind of fuel can make this a material for nuclear weapons. And Non-Proliferation Treaty has not prohibited development of molecular fuel cycle, provided this activity as carried out in formulating the basic obligation not to acquire nuclear weapons. So it makes sense, develop incentives to encourage companies as far into nuclear power to buy nuclear fuel in the international market when established requires and how did they make it themselves. And the the papers speculated for discussion outlines ideas for incentives to choose not to engage in enrichment and reprocessing. All of these incentives are now being pursued in one fashion or another. Fuel supply for instance had been studied for decades and we are trying to transition from the study actually putting in place a fuel supply mechanism at the IAEA and this would be one element of broader incentives including infrastructure assistance, financing assistance, help this kind of fuel management and so forth for countries that are starting out at nuclear power. Now it makes sense to discourage enrichment and reprocessing it in any contexts whether at present levels and nuclear forces or reduced levels or what ever. We can discuss today however how we might proceed in this speculate context of deep reductions of nuclear weapons. The first possibility would be in pursuing the same approach discussed in the paper, the same incentive package but here is a new context to encourage wider support. South Africa for example has been a leader in the opposition. South Africa spoke out strongly on a board against fuel supply assurances on grounds that the TS office should be open to everybody. South Africa has not much participated in activities in Vienna as expressed interest enriching uranium itself for its own reactors. South Africa and many others might be more open to discharging fuel cycle activities. That the context were part of an overall effort to reduce nuclear weapons. We should not anticipate to make a a huge difference since even as nuclear states reduce nuclear weapons, many non nuclear states would go under resist setting up a new divide between haves and have-nots based on fuel cycle technology. Second possibility which would make more substantial use in the new context will be the seek to change the legal situation. Paper assumed explicitly they are reopening the NPT to prohibit the spread of nuclear fuel cycle technology would be counter productive. The new context we could revisit that assumption and consider a new body. A nuclear state and there was - some mentioned of that again this morning. Then the nuclear states would assume a more specific obligation to reduce nuclear weapons during beyond Article 6. And the non nuclear states will accept restrictions on fuel cycle technology and if this were successful, it would be a big improvement on the legal situation. The problem is that such an outcome will require negotiations with all the 140 IAEA member states. So the most part at least in my limited experience, these are not practical people, they like to say that progress are not proliferation requires progress on disarmament but there is no reason to believe that actual progress on the sounds will then open the way to new non proliferation restrictions. But at least conceptually in the new context of beneficial change in the legal situation could be considered. And then perhaps others can see see some promise in this. We have - some mentioned this morning that this could be a an objective for the next review conference The third possibility would be to consider multilateral approaches to enrichment or reprocessing. For example whole new enrichment and reprocessing facilities beyond those that now exist would have to be multilateral and have to be under IEA control. I know that several of the papers with this meeting, made some casual references, some multilateral facilities for enrichment reprocessing including the insurance relative. So perhaps there is a ground swell here for multilateral facilities, I think as good. Well, there are lots of problems in such facilities and we can we can talk about this you know but the idea of having the fuel cycle as a multilateral enterprise under IAEA control is ____ dream. And he would be a big supporter and he has a lot of influence among those who have up to now have close close efforts to discourage - ____ and this can also have ____ source. The nuclear state expenditures now nuclear countries would buy rather than make nuclear fuel and they have the option of buying it from multilateral from a multilateral facility under IAEA control presumably less vulnerable to the whims of the advanced countries. Now there are lots of problems with multilateral, multinational facilities. One potential problem is of analogy security and is the perfect point to this exercise to prevent the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technology but you can easily see how multinational facilities could actually accelerate the spread of these technologies. Just for one example, URENKO is a multinational organization and URENKO centrifuged technology is now the basis was stolen by a Pakistani national in Holland and is now the basis for the uranium enrichment program and the Pakistani enrichment program. Great. Now we we can also envision for a moment the multinational facility in the middle east that's staffed by Iranian, Saudi, Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi nationals. And their question is how you have confidence that the technology would not be stolen for their domestic use. Now we might be able to get around this technology problem from a clever black box approach where United States or URENKO or Russia would build a facility somewhere and not allow access to the technologies and the technology will be will be held. URENKO is building a facility in the Mexico under these conditions is possible with something like that, could be done somewhere else. There is no however serious consideration being given now to multilateral enrichment in the near term for a number of reasons. First technology, security, and lets talk of that Second United States does not have modern commercial enrichment technology. So for at least the next 10 years, only Morocco and Russia could provide the centrifuge cascade for this approach, that would be disadvantages disadvantages for the United States commercially and there are also questions by the way we have confidence that Russia could reliably prevent technology loss and the facility built in a sensitive location with Russian technology. Multilateral enrichment would be completely different from the way its done now which is mostly by by private companies, facilities and private hands and it now works well and has been very reliable for many-many years. Questions would arise about eventually bringing existing facilities including existing facilities in the United States under IAEA control. It's already what the what the IAEA has marked And the use of multilateral facilities is voluntary, countries could have doubt in favor of indigenous enrichment which would be for purpose that the use of multinational facilities to be a part and then questions of how you work that out, how you enforce that. Countries will say that if they have to arrive a multinational enrichment, why is it that the United States and Russia and other advanced countries aren't operating under the same rubric that's that's the way these people think. So there is a lots of problem but in the new context we are open to more ambitious approaches. Some sort of multilateral facility could be considered as an alternative to the indigenous enrichment process in many countries. All right, those are sort of my fact as to how you might take a new look at the problem of building this better enrichment process in the new context we were discussing here today. Could you say anything about the back end of the fuel cycle? The back end of the fuel cycle, if you could if you could if you could actually do something useful, that would be a great benefit to countries who had just start out in nuclear power, they would have to worry about what what would accept your storage, waste and stock. The problem there is that that even, there is essentially no country; certainly in United States including has a good hand involved with us with that kind of a fuel cycle. It is therefore positioned to be telling the Egypt's and Indonesians and Turkey's for this fuel, how to behave. We are not now in a position to always to take back, we are we are working part of as part of this exercise, and I will put a little bit of this in the paper to put on it you know, so as in a position to be able to just to do something helpful and we are trying something helpful on storage, may be trying to get ourselves in a legal position though we can take back a little bit of spend fuel for countries that are you know about the icons of it. But that that's that's something which is in a very earlier stages of work. Most of the activity, now focus on the front end and the fuels part which is involved in a number of valid areas, and then the one end is a lot more we can say, to that become from the front line on the other hand there is less of the problem because this is going to already buying only at the market. But the backend of the fuel cycle as far as you know, it will be helpful to take back that fuel is a work in progress. I think this is a very notable goal to limit the spread of enrichment capacities. I think it's a real long shot though given Brazil's and Canada's interest in many other countries. But it's not impossible. I - you have to think what would be what would be incentives be? But I have some countries that are going to- or disincentives. Some countries are going with regard of those, just one more element of NPT discrimination the other countries are not going to want to do it for commercial reasons, like Canada perhaps you know, one of those. And as far as trading further NPT nuclear weapon states limitations on Article VI type of commitments for no enrichment. That's what we did in 1995 a front definite extension and we haven't delivered on any of them; or most of them. So I don't think that would get too far either. But what my and this is just an idea. May be its not sound, but well what they what they would seem to me in my my work is, many, many of the countries are worried about having enrichment. And countries that don't now have reactors, many of them. And perhaps there could be be an arrangement whereby either eight countries or group of countries agrees to help finance the construction the reactors to exchange for no enrichment and the fuel comes back. That might be you know that might work possibly. And then then things like that are certainly being looked at, and we are talking to the World Bank, example, about changing their policy with this respect to financing and then perhaps of course over their MG project. But, as your basic point, we will think about and once you are done with the whole whole way of reductions, what you are left with is the worldwide World Wide Worldwide plummet of uranium enrichment of it's only a production capability in civil civil programs. So this is what will define what you get to after you are finished with the production. It may add crucial to to going to zero, you can list ask to be aware of absolutely. Well, I thought that it was too frivolous for me to say, but then I discovered you put it in a paper. you will get a you you can look at that that's sort of a plus or minus. I am not you know if everybody has an enrichment over necessity. You said that's terrible. You know, it's obviously how are easier for us to go to greater levels of nuclear weapons. If we know, we have this reconstitution capability inherent, you know. Then, look at somewhere. Along with everybody else, you know I have we are more having our cells but not everybody else have. I have Ash, Matt, Phil, Sergio, Harry, Bob, Abe. Ash- Just wanted to add something Jim might have added which is the economics of enrichment is very different from the way it was in vision, time the NPT was up. In fact all the economics have used their powers different and in that time; because people thought that would be too cheap to meter and everybody need to participate. And then in order to participate secondly we had to participate whole fuel cycle. And I realize that these people may not be susceptible economic, but I just wanted to to say the economics enrichment you know, is a very small fraction it is a small fraction could have it was a it's a small fraction of the overall fuel costs rate, once through LWR Power Reactor, which are a very small fraction of the operating costs which have more fraction of the capital cost. And then if you add on top of that, the political and regulatory risk premium that commercial operators have to attach to this venture. This is a small business; enrichment is a small business and a few billion dollars a year to team the economic lists. So the world to turn on it. Another that was appreciated 30 years ago, it's a small business that is dominated by essentially around the world; that's more or less self serving government dominated bureaucracies, you mean, they say the private sector they have been regulating. So so I just wanted to be put it scale. It's just not true and I know we say this to the Iranians all the time, they have other reasons not to listen to us. But for anybody who is thinking economically this is not a hard issue and I only say that because it it's 30 years ago, I think it seem to people of the security and economic more any running up against each other. And in this case they are really in the same direction and the principle of these that's a fact that should support the the direction here, so it's good It's only true that around the world our friends are the people who just want to make electricity. And and the troublemakers are the ones who have other other chapters. And electricity is a big business and enrichment is a small business. And in every countries, there is this breakers and that what we are re trying to do it influence that discussion. Matt Yes. I though it was a very good paper. A couple of thoughts on the multinational facilities. I think there is a big spectrum in-between say, a fully Iranian owned Iranian operated Iranian staffed facility in Iran and you know, every and they completely IE managed thing and arguably URENKO and Eurodif who are two of those, four big supplies that exists today are in a certain sense Multinational Facilities with Multinational Ownership and so on. And it seems to me it would be worth having more of an exploration of some of those intermediate stages because I do think that our our facility you know, what the best case is you know, no more countries deploying multinational plans and have them right now. And an additional enrichment plan and an additional county that was really multinationally owned and had 24 or seven multinational staff are supposed to instructors who are coming that once in a while is I think you know, arguably a significant and lower risk. And I think overtime, you could imagine taking the existing facilities - and making them multinational in that sense without compromising the investments that people that had already made. I mean, there will be no problem out take from the Japanese for the view and to French and the United States wanted to invest some in the Japanese. You know, the Japanese Enrichment Plan and ____ or something lke that, and similar which we process and so on. And I think as we go towards zero, some movement and attraction of multinational control of relationally sensitive parts of the cycle will be important. I as I mentioned in our conference call; I think that the URENKO current example and the technologies security promise is a little bit tricky because Khan was working for a contractor that was designing the central features. And on principle there is no reason to have you know, to spread the knowledge about the design of such features just because you are a multinational staff in the operation of the center that we learned last class. I think you got these, you know they - and I don't know much about them The one thing I wanted to ask you on the economic so at least some people have proposed the notion that the existing supplier states might substantially subsidies enrichment to new entrance in return for the new entrance agreeing not to be there and enrich. That would create sort of a a higher barrier to entry on the economic front that I was talking about. Then if you said, okay, I am going to I am going to sort of cover the capital cost that my company invested in this plan and that I am going to say the enrichment that the marginal cost of production let's say, $50 or something like that when I was in the market place ____ and I wonder whether anybody is looking at that or what what you think the obstacles would be I just want to see your obviously there are economic obstacles That is being looked at the obstacle, was the obvious form and who comes up with the money back to your further point of that - and you know why don't we agree to multinationalize our own enrichment here of course just one tiny example that the if the IAEA ran the US enrichment enterprise, could you make some review and it's probably done and that's the sort of things that could really create new obstacle for the point. I was just going to say that it's being multilateralized because the US company that enriches ____ as a somewhat problematic issue because of the financing issues and technological issues whereas where in the URENKO are busy expanding their capacities. I think on this topic the morning had little bit of a sense of cold war plus plus, the afternoon we are now moving through vertical of the horizontal axis and here I think we are going to - probably to get success you are going to need some kind of creativity, you are going to need to do some things that's kind of a big big moves and I am glad as soon as I started looking into this during the summer, I went back and read the Acheson-Lilienthal plan which I really recommend, the folks who read it a long time ago and haven't read recently I really urge you to go back to it not the Baruch plan but the Acheson- Lilienthal plan of April 46 which actually says out lying post instructions not work and they actually have a very shrewd discussion of this that's sociological not just political and then they make the argument for the atomic development authority so you need to basically have an entity that has law in control of the sensitive functions which effective funding to the uranium mining and things that you wouldn't emphasize so much today. Now I am not saying that you could just kind of take that and apply it to obey them today but there is a really conceptual - interesting conceptual power for that back than frankly it it wasn't a very good idea for about 60 years but it looks a lot more interesting today than may it's looked in a very long time and because of course what what Jim outlined in his paper mostly is various ways of solving the "have", "have-not" like problem you abide, making promises that "have not" will putting them have nots and that's an inherent problem that you can't break unless you make some kind of jump In addition that to the international authority solving the have, have-not problem including a face saving way to solve so you can have national licensure in which they now save face and which there is no overt hierarchy but now the economic rules can really come into place because they would save their face politically, but they don't want to do national licensing because that's now really a money losing proposition but another aspect of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan problem approach is it has to be exclusive control so the technological security point is from their point of view there are no sensitive operations outside of the international board if they are there, they are defect to our law from the start and the entire world would unite against that conception and I think that's somewhat credible, there are no issues of intend they regard the issues of intend as unsolved in 1946 so you are in the regime or you are out of the regime and If you are in the regime you are under international control and then that leads to the practicality of international control and then some of the technical issues that were raised including the relationship of this true existing profit entities, they regarded all those issues as difficult but ultimately manageable and I wanted to call folks attention to the suggested power of the European coal and steel committee number one coal and steel as being the key national security dilemma issues of the their age and then the time that Shumen come up with the Shumen plan, there was a huge dispute over how did this man power continue dismantling German coal and steel production. In late 1940s very hard to solve that it has been a problem for more than a generation going back to the ultimate first world war and the even they come up with this idea of simply internationalizing it into this steel and coal community for which they had to invent a whole new conception of international authorities, legal powers and the like which they were able to master more than 50 years ago and I think the this illustration has some suggestive power in this context frankly some of the prototypes of one NTIs involved in are also suggested in the same direction sooner the way this is the plea that consider making an overt conceptual lead in which you kind of go right to the conception of where this could become and see all these moves as prototypes moving in that direction and by the way I would say to some of my friends that if you are worried about ____ use the fact that will support this in the short term quite confident that you won't be around when it comes time for this entity to have any executive power Sergio- Thank you I come from a country that has worst sometimes skepticism about the the whole idea and this is basically I think based on trust, I mean countries like mine and I don't speak here as a delegate to the Brazil, I am no longer a Brazilian diplomat, I am a international civil servant and I must act as such but the the question that has been voiced is whether an internationalizing system would be trust worthy. The fortunately the history of agreements show to the have nots that these agreements have not been trust worthy, they have not gotten from those agreements what they thought they would get especially the NBT. even though they continued to be parts of the NPT and continued to to support the NPT even the late comer like Brazil, so how to how to infuse trust in the in the international system I think is the crux of the problem, if that would be possible I think that the system, an international system might have some future, you also spoke of steps whether whether steps towards a number of addition would have to ____ and vice versa. countries that have accepted restrictions on the industries because of number of addition that they have-nots in the NPT argue that they they have done enough, they have accepted the restrictions, they live by the restriction, they have a couple of wayward states but 189 of them were done minus two or three they have accepted and have abided by their commitments to no fault and they say well we did that what have you done on the other side and the the they could broke out and seem very encouraging to these countries and this is why there is a strong lack of confidence on the part of countries that would be affected by accepting further restriction and that that confidence cap I think is the is the obstacle that must be overcome Harry- James Timbie and others corrected raising questions about internationalizing fuel cycle and I am glad fuel cycle actually has read the - was really very ambitious but hard to see today how we get where we are to that condition are that it's nuclear weapons is that true so the the economics has started quite right - nuclear energy is dominated by the capital cost but in so far as cost of the margin matters is fuel costs are reduced to a potential user that increases the incentive pay by tomorrow so there will be that - perhaps somebody out there who is talking about getting the nuclear electric power gets very closely to make the nuclear weapons, we get people that we more likely get well that's the stuff which is positive effect or today it's it's so now but in terms of something that we couldn't go quite [0:29:15] ____ the spent fuel issue - dealing with that, there may be a possibility to changing the framework within which spent fuel is addressed possibly it's it's a really bad check as a topic there is a notion that is a really a great idea to reprocess and to expect ____ news for instance ____ plutonium in circulation that's not a great idea and then we have a impulse here and probably other places to what to do with these stuff well you know time to time there are small countries or somebody notices it don't happen it at islands, that you pass enough and we will do it. Okay, I think it's true. Some places, you are paid enough, they will take - may be geologically, that is actually but it's conceivable at least with which you think about and what could be reading I think reading is a big reading is a big it's really an important issue. There are a lot of people about this thing. Let's sort of couple the crap in terms of the spent fuel. What this really into take different framework we really, international control framework and get the spent fuel collected and put in a safe place. Stuff inside the harder view - this is radioactive so it's that's something it's kind of sort of what's up, if it's not done separated, and what's off with so that's one possibility here which would actually be a very useful contribution system, that part of without the or any cases and well, on the politics we have had that experiences so what they mentioned and the worst I had the experiences. People changed their minds or they were undeceived from the beginning that I and they will use the deadly reactant which is material for it. That's what I believe and we know at least what happened in North Korea and URENKO dimension. I mean it's a dimension not simply assumed, that some kind of a political arrangement is going to be affirmative to that because these things continue Can you just jump in on the spent fuel issue as to emphasis something Jim said, it if you already have pretty good assurance that you are going to get fresh fuel from the existing commercial markets so its the kind of fuel assurances that's a kind of working on is a small additional effect on the decision making in countries about whether to have their own enrichment or not, because if that is small. Where as here if you could say, look we are going to give you your fresh fuel and what's - all these assurances plus we are going to take off this pet fuel away. And you will never have to think about your repository for yourself. That was huge incentive for a state to agree. Yeah that's the system all it be and rather than building my own newer command. And so and there are you know, a 190 plus countries in the world, so it takes one of them to say you know, I am willing of people opinion I have thought it take some spit fuel in my country. Russia has already passed the law that allows them in and to do the fuel releasing approach. That's what they are going to do with they were on they were reluctant to do it on a huge scale. There is also the issue of these potentially modest sized reactors where you could take the entire reactor to a country and would operate for 15 years or something like that and then take the entire thing back and then you kind of - just have to build up anyway near as much infrastructure. It's so I think I think well it's a lot harder of the issue I have spent fuel could be on much bigger, deal in terms of effect and country's decisions if we could figure out how they deal it. The reason why I agree with that and may be interested in these places that Henry Harry excuse me, I think existed.We have rooted power, we have rooted - we have other well may be you can tell us other advises that you can just I think those are two low out that who knows what rising sea level will be. I have been told Jim may be this isn't so and then if you come out more available today in operating, it would be so leveled. And if survives are such that It depends on if you just took all the spent fuel in spent fuel ____ time at which that were put at in and you have to build another one. But that was one of the main reasons the GNet program was We met before under legislative women, not on the physically possible technique. All right but that's you tried in effect for it, it's something about But the point is that we are going to have more nuclear powered plant all over the world. We are going to have a volume of spent fuels and they will be that's very large. And one of the reasons, the global nuclear partnership was invented was the ____ technology never allowed recycling on spent fuel and forms where you reduce by a factor of 10 or 100, the repository requirement. That's when it's nearly years away. But that's intentional solution to the problem that I have done In February I think 2004, it was President Bush who proposed that fuel cycle capabilities be limited to countries that already have full scale functioning enrichment or reprocessing plans. And then the bureaucracy had to fill your out how you define that in a way that friends of America could have the plans and you know, Iran couldn't, and you know, there are clerical people in the state department, they figured out how to draw the line and preserve was okay, Iran was not okay, but that broke down We were told we were ok. But that broke down almost immediately because there were friends in the United States who you know, under any definition did not have enrichment processing facilities but wanted to keep up in the option to have that countries like Australia, Canada, you know, good friends of the US and you know, the problem here is that it's it's very very difficult to hold the line and the well the optimal approach would be to have a side line. We just not going to get that in the real world and know you administration is going to want to enforce you know, a rigid line. So I think you know, what has to begin to think of you know next best solutions and I agree with Matt you know, there is going to be no one size fix over solution to this problem. This is going to be a patch work of solutions. Some countries will see the economics and not going forward, others will see the incentives that are at the front end or the back end and they will decide that you know it make sense to avoid this capability. Others perhaps we can pressure but we still have the leverage, they are going to pressure to scan down But some others were going to have to have some squirrelly kinds of outcomes. Some you know, better than others. For example, South Korea is - were interested in the back end than the front end. But you know, in the next 20 years. They would entitled under almost any you know, criteria of economic acceptability but it might make sense to try to persuade japan and south Korea to get together and having you know, that multinational but at least the by-national facility. Who knows may be even you know, China which is you know, building up its program would be a participant. That's for China and for South Korea and japan, I wouldn't worry about you know, the technology transfer aspects of it. Australia you know, may be interested in this. Some south East Asia countries are interested in how to deal on nuclear power programs. It's conceivable that you know Australia would do the enrichment on its own territory. And provide fuel for south East Asian neighbors. You know, Jordon, Turkey and Egypt are talking about having nuclear power programs now. I I really wouldn't want to spread the technology to all those countries but can URENKO or you know, some authority you know, locate a facility in the region in a good safe location in the region, have these countries get an equity share in their arrangement and provide fuel, what I am saying is if this a solution is going to be a messy solution and it's going to involve all kinds of different geometries Well, alright of all that, what have the Europeans when offering the Iranians? I am curious because I hear we are unreliable and no one can trust us to really deliver the fuel that we promised to deliver because where, we are going to decide that we don't trust the country involved and so we don't deliver the fuel and have the what have the what have the Iranians said. What are the Europeans first of all said, given the fact that no one around here seems to believe that we would even take the spent fuel and what did the Iranian said, are to indicate that they care it all. I mean do they care if if we would have devised something that was really reliable. Would they be more inclined to accept that? Is this a viable idea at all, genuine in terms of solving this uranium prices with that I thought that Russia offered to provide Russian uranium and take the spent fuel there, you offered - There is already a contract That they agreed that they were agreed to that. But for the first ten years - the answer of the question, in 2004-2005 the European Union offered Iran a very and positive fuel supply. Assurance was guaranteed, fuel supply would be often stocked. There were arrangements of of the world problems with fuel fabrication but this was very impressive was all laid on and the Iranians really considered as an insult and that is an indicator that the Iranians have something else in mind. But this is this is not a fuel problem look around this is this is another kind of problem. My question follows to this is a very compelling argument for relations that would be driven mainly by economic reasons. Save a lot of money, that's a very convenient. But in your first page you point to other motivations such as to avoid falling behind each years technologies and then from security benefits. Do you think that team could give the countries that could obey this these interest and you only enough to be a real bad guy for instance if you remember the big classes illustrate between the Bush administration and journals. And the governance almost the journalist simply wanted to have the entire fuel circle. They are interested but it is very hard to get even good guys that along with bad guys off make the go we pointed to the path of the nuclear works with those kind of various. Egypt - I think Egypt is an example where they are going to have this debate and that would be energy electricity minister all the things want reliable cheap electricity. Another others who are - they want to be left behind by the development world don't want to be left behind by Iran they there is a feeling about some people that if you have full fuel cycle people wont push you around and they will put the hand and stuff like this. So this is going to be a debate, this is going to be an argument and we wanted to abide and we want to get some extra arguments from the guys who just want to make the cheaper electricity. That's why they check the balance but this one No that nobody is expecting it to work around Iran The point is to try to keep other countries and going down the track - Allison I applaud Jim Timbie's paper I think it's a great overview and more importantly the fact that it goes through works and works in the parliament and this is filling this for long time. Why it remains unsolved, I think is the fact that which is extremely and extremely difficult problem, but I think what it does is remind us that a country with rich uranium or country that can reprocesses plutonium is 90 percent possible through having nuclear bomb. So in the nuclear terrorist guide what I I call these resent views, they shouldn't be thought as part of the fuel cycle they shouldn't be thought as nuclear bombs just about to have and if if every country that's going to have nuclear power plants is either in the business of rich men only processing and they are going to - many countries either look like North Korea and Iran, and that's the world we can live in so, I think James got its his ____ he is right, and the second point the the question of the economics of this is not decisive for somebody the government and how how much pressure the government can come under, when those debates are going forward and when then not went through in the last September a year ago to announce the $50 million check from buffet to create, if matched with the $100 million from other parties being fuel supply of last reserve operated by the IAEA that would be available In that context we could only do the analysis of what's the total calculation for a country that wants to operate a nuclear power plant is worry that its fuel might be or not - might be a risk because Mr. Matthew's point is exactly right. The US is interfering with lots of contracts in the past and therefore make the argument that at least the nucleus of the government make the idea we would be having our own enrichment facility otherwise we will know whether we would be able to have fuel yet. And if you go through pieces of it a country that cant make a reactant, so there is the buy there they cant makes very importance. So they can't actually nuclear the reactor without external support, so it needs to have a impact. So we go through the list of the things that the country can do itself the idea that luminal thing that we can do and we need to do is in rich uranium. We get to be less and less possible for the final Ex-minister in the country if you are talking together or through the Prime Minister of the country, if he is coming in under international pressure, so I think this the general idea that James worked in he is been working on and that's been presenting the papers jut right and my question Jim was back to the one that Matt have suggested before. I think we should should be able to say to the parties you can buy fuel for the nuclear reactor at half the cost that you can produce them. Now then we get to figure out the ways to figure out which is the cost they can produce it, because they are going to do the capital cost and the operating cost, and then get their fuel and the regions. But the region which amazed this study of that might be it looked more or like the fifty millions bucks a year for reactors, not for for new countries in reactors for 50 bucks a year you could do you could do even better than you can buy it for half so, after a long that had and you are talking in it was a $50 million item, then it seems to me like better - profit is already put 50 million dollars on the table to solve another problem. Its may be for entropic issue and this is the file about that the idea of the subsidies that it could been a $50 million per year per country No, $50 million for all of them of the new ways in various calculations I get only you know otherwise I think its perfect but I thought it was the idea. I think that there are you got the right numbers for them the point is that just its just a very small fraction of all thing no government can claim this is a big economic decision for them for a big spin on and now what the industry can either that doesn't mean there are voices that are not larger than the numbers and it doesn't mean that there are voices on mostly influenced by I think that nothing to be honest But then and then when the South Africans were even I would say the Brazilians they are getting in to the business, the finance minister should say this is not economically because I can buy it for 50 cents and you can make me buy it for a dollar plus a lot of capital costs and that I they looked looked the person was like we are going to save you under people and then we are able to say we actually are going to undercut your price we are then used it well so u got you seem to being you know why of because of a lot of money. The question that they will ask is how long this arrangement lasts right and I trust you that these will last 10 20 50 years that is the question that I am going to ask that's a that's no lesser to that question. I think competition of the true point here is that may be they can borrow off a small amount of money is that something For 50 years or the 25 years these is a question about how much spare parts for you yet, how about the repair of that yet. So I would say you are able to get people a package of which is why that Jim was going of kind of all the end, that's a lot better than the alternative you will get by making yourself As a former Secretary of the Treasury, I had to fight my into a national security council meeting everyone once in a while Henry would lock me in. And I can only say that government should be reorganized so the economics has a strong say you know these councils. In fact there is some interesting data that shows that in the countries where the financial minister is in the room when nuclear weapons are being debated there is a lower probability to see it all comes it all comes attracted to money we have - You are making money remarks, the first one you say almost I think twice when Jim Timbie is praised for a good paper, because he is first alumnis of the Stanford Arms Control Program. So we are talking about the problem of the expensive owners go for it in terms of today's technology at the same time as we emphasized all morning this can be a long time before we get and it was near zero so lets look at this problem in that time scale and ask what is the role of doing not only for the proliferation problem but also for the environment problem investing in technologies that are going to help us escape this stress I am not talking about fusion in my years fusion was 20 years of age to they achieved more of the 20 years of age and I would get younger but there are technologies there are technologies in the labs there are technologies in the theoretical papers which could change the way energy is going to produced and this not only includes nuclear processes but it could be a different class of reactors it will be a hybrid of fusion and fission and we are not assuming anywhere from near the investment in that, that it more as given the tremendous impact on proliferation on a nuclear free world and on our environment. It's totally out of scale and that's one of the tragedies that something should the done and which and that's common - Okay. Could I ask a question for my education? All of these discussions are here assume that most nations don't want nuclear proliferation and that intelligent way can be found to to be great to this desire. But, empirically that doesn't seemed to be true; and so I would like to add two questions. One is at what point do we know that the nuclear program of a country has moved irreversibly towards a military capacity? The military have enough of capability to enrich fuel at Uranium that wants to reactive. Then my my next question is, how far ahead of that point does one need to take action? What does one do? What action who are the countries that make themselves responsible for bringing this about? And Only answered second question. Notice, they might might take several years to get the if they start - I have no view on that. Yeah. No no, I am just saying, in my view, it takes a couple of years for a country when it starts in the game of enrichment to show that they can run many thousands of such fusions in Baghdad, 24 hours a day, seven days a year to get enough enrichment to to make a bomb. It's a several year process. But but once they can enrich a reactor, they are almost there. Then then the motivation for proliferation, well that's something You know, - and I am almost there. We are close to there. Okay, but then which group of countries makes themselves responsible for preventing the next step? That's what we are seeing unfilled right now; as these countries are trying to figure out what fuel better Now but, what we see now its that the number of countries they its unacceptable they has agreed to saying I mean, said to but they don't define what they mean by that. Well, what they are going to do And they seem to we have to push. Yeah, decision whatever that decision. They won't be defined the decision. They won't even say that it is that is irreversible bond we built too because that would certainly be a discouraging element for Nuke Countries. It's just something that one how to address conceptually Yeah, yeah I think be one people should address is be much more careful when they are when they say something is unacceptable. Because it's said so often that it's obvious it's acceptable. Yeah, when you say it; you have got a people have to realize, well you mean it. I have Tom, Richard, Mike and General Dvorkin. Tom All right, I we are turning again to the enrichment issue and I I do think James papers were very very helpful. And that remains very skeptical that there is any incentive to for a country to join a multilateral fuel bank or or anything else like that. And I I suggested one one possibility about some commercial arrangements. But another possibility I think that that should be considered and I agree with that economic serve not very important here. But many other countries that are going to be acquiring reactors in the next 15 or 20 years old, that will be countries that don't have them yet. It's generally believed that perhaps the number of reactors in the world today whatever, there is 425 well, will double over the next 15 or 20 years. And each each reactor is one of this, in principle makes enough petroleum and petroleum filled bombs. So it's a very serious issue from the stand point of of zero. It's like that many of the countries as I said probably is going to be getting reactors for the first time. And many of those countries might be willing to give up or not pursue enrichment and want to have this spend fuel shipped out of the country not because of the economics, not because of any NPT benefits, but because of the external politics, they they don't want to they don't want to get contrary to the United States or Israel or depending on the region they are in. I think that's since since most of the countries we care about are in that category. I think that's probably the best hopes for realizing what the what James is trying to do. You mean military business or something? Well, I mean if you are in Egypt, you you don't want to do anything that's going to defend the United States. You want to get though the access. If you want to offend the United States in process so you United States says, it don't have an enrichment it don't have the process you say, okay. That's what I mean. Richard. You know I am I am having I am having trouble understanding the the nature of the problem. It it seems to me that the problem is not of that other countries name build enrichment facilities. Problem is that there are a few countries that may build enrichment facilities. And the reason why we are concerned about them is because we believe that their perspective requirement. So that we are talking about very large schemes would affect all countries as they contemplate enrichment. But I think we focus on the problem cases. Now if that's a better chance of coming up with a solution. I I I don't think why we want to still adjust if they choose Well, I see a lot of reasons for discouraging the Iranians. They wouldn't be a better off drawing up a list of problem of the cases. And then, looking to see how we might be able to put them and there may be no two solutions. Or they may may be no single solution if you look problem cases. This is in fact they are likely to be highly specific than you know no circumstances of the country, its external relationships, its internal relations I I think as of today you would have a fair wish what was and that looks like a much more attacking problem trying to design some large scheme with subsidies, with regulations, one one so to know. So, leave the decision on enrichment in the hands of those countries; then we don't have reasons to worry about, we concentrate on the ones we do. Now what's the easy solution on Iran I don't know. There isn't any solution but if you try to develop a solution for Iran, it probably wouldn't look like there the solution you might try to develop in other case. So that there is a difference between searching for something national solution; and and looking that grid very narrowly in the problem cases. Can I respond to that? I it's not what you say. There are two things wrong with it. That that, they divide; yeah, there are good guys and bad guys but there is a third category; they are the in-betweens. And that you don't know where they are going in the long run And they don't That's that's the first thing. The work doesn't really divide that way. What do you mean by bad guy category? Category. Well, no that I think it's a that's that's thing one. Then I think its lot more than that and two is that in order to go after the bad guys, you are you are trying to get some solidarity - among the good guys and the in-betweens so that you can focus on the bad guys. So, I mean, there is something in what you say we have to have strategies for bad guys that are not acceptable to any of this stuff that we re talking about and Iran is probably in that category. But looking further ahead, I think the two points that I made suggest that I mean, I think that's the reason why James is pursuing. They are going to get anywhere with it but but that's the reason I have Mike, General Dvorkin and Rose that I am drawing a line and we go on to the next topic. So, - Thanks. My questions, comments very related to this particular debate and we will choose. There will there is a it's a real discussion seems to me that - and we are talking about general regimes and and that the elephants and the room of course is Iran. And so when I hear that well, I doesn't work for Iran then it that makes me think, well solving the problem with Australia and Egypt doesn't seem like that that the thing we should be talking about. But, does the solving does the talking about the international regime help you deal with Iran. And I think the case the answer to that is yes, and but I wanted to I just raised out a question because the people are more expertise here and may be to hear a little bit more about what the Russians had actually put on the table and tell us you know what are legitimate sounding box and what are the illegitimate clients that are just discussing something else. So for instance in the negotiations its and I would be looking to those in that I don't I don't know these thing but but from what I know secondly the Iranians keep brazing well we we don't you know and Ahmadinejad that's serious we don't want to outlaw science and progress you know that's you know we talk about a twelfth century idea so they want their physicists to be involved in in the Russian development right in Russia that was one of their proposals now its just a red hearing and is it and the flip side of that is is that necessary to explode those red hearing that then have the legitimacy to do the the other more hard core enforcement things should arise because right now it seems like its Iran things its more or like Australia and I am not so sure in terms of the international community where the rest of the international community is on that debate I would say myself that where an international regime would help you in its not so much in arguing with Iran as in the ability to rally people behind the notion that this is unacceptable and meet it. That's why we would help you more than and whatever persuasiveness you might have general. Thank you. Its general - It's an issue of problem you know it came out before you handled the control the levels of uranium enrichment All it takes everybody to sign and rather phase its additional protocol to NPT This provides for the open control of the levels of enrichment. They are too dangerous country they wish I haven't rectified this protocol. Iran and the United States Russia has just rectified this in 1997 protocol Regarding Russian agreement with Iran. This is a one time agreement for supplying and return of the fuel to fulfill Bush Administration. I am not sure of at all this point that Russia would supply a fuel more to Bush era at all because there are a lot of problems but nearly political ones But Iran has a large program for the construction of nuclear power stations though you are wealthy you are on the Bush air facility Russian pioneered the proposal of that the Iran joins the multilateral center there is a multilateral center like that basically ready to work at all Iran has been basically taking Russia for a ride now for several years They handled them don't want to solve the issue The idea of those multilateral approaches are, that's very important and it's very important at the center supply fuel to enter at acceptable prices One may even drop this systems at the centers are financially self sufficient Its very important from the state from the point of views for example five Arab nations that have the already proclaimed the desire to develop their own nuclear power systems I think these countries need technically aid from the west from the Russia and the one condition of this kind of aid should be -- should be returned of the spent fuel. For Iran it's truly a special program that I hope to discuss in more detail tomorrow Listening to this strikes me as one of the toughest problems that you have on the tape I think it solution and this one doesn't get solved everything falls hard. So you think about it just there is a couple of strategies here on some answer the certainty is that come out of the discussion and lot more people are going to do react have anything stay, I think that take you on another directions so that's so certainly and there is a kind of two forks and there is a road here that I referred one is sort of a big bang theory I guess the way it can be one of the big bang theory or some version of that for you just changed the game and possibility that don't seem like the ground is well for that but its on the table the other is the patchwork on some sort I think probably saying that we have to make a lot of arrangements that we have to woke with but the things that runs toward on and here on really second thing what journal of the book said who really I think hit the nail on the head. I think it turns into a monitoring problem otherwise if you don't get if you are social everyone can there is a lot more reactors and you don't have a game changing big bang international agency that does it all and the additional protocol of the is the things that could be the savior here because I understand the explosive given to improve the model then because there is some version of it that's become it becomes a monetary profit of whether you aware that the system with non proliferation and that's probably been to strengthen the IAEA, both in terms of personal and authorities and money I heard any other way to deal with it other than as a monitoring Yes I was listening to Sid Drell when he was mentioning the feature thirty to fifty years and I want to remind itself that like water reactors we see speed you know the kind of name reactor being deployed when our supplies of uranium start to run short so enrichment of uranium is an issue that takes you out probably 30 to 50 years but beyond that we are looking at new technologies fast reactors different fuel cycles other kinds of approaches to these problem. And therefore I am thinking about incentive that's actually long been when thinking of incentives if we cannot incentives by economic means what are the other incentives one to mind is clearly the back and the fuel cycle we have been working hard enough on the problem in my view but the second one is and it's a related point new technologies they are related back in the fuel cycle and the new fuel fuels and the reactors to of course because once you get into having to fabricate your fuel out of petroleum and you know trying that's sort of issues then essentially you are growing at battle camp and the fund in some sense of the same time with some new technological approaches so I just think that we should also include in our consideration of how we incentives countries such as Iran these for reaching vision its clear enough that's its going to help us immediately and it doesn't help us right now with their enrichment program but to try to invade the notion that like water reactors its not always going to be apt in 30 years or so and that they should be willing to to join arms and try to look forward where nuclear power is going in the future, I think could be an important way to work the problem. But it's a more generic and more general I think category of incentives that we should be considering. That is how to work the back end of the fuel cycle and how to work the new technology categories in a way that will incentives even some very difficult problem countries to to multiply Thank you. Before we move on to the next topic, I had to leave a few minutes ago because I had a call from Governor Schwarzenegger, who has been he is heavily engaged of course going from place to place and and I told him of course we didn't expect him here and he is where he should be help there with firefighters and coping. He told me that a million people have now been misplaced, then half a million acres have been burnt, the fires are still raging, it's a combination of heat and dry conditions, and the wind that is strong as swearing. So it's very very difficult situation and all those things makes you think of the what would happen if a nuclear weapon would also burn I guess would be worse than this. But this is pretty bad problem for us here in California. He did say that there is a tremendous outpouring of people to help fire fighters being recruited from all over but also that those these people being displaced, he they are working very hard and he thinks everybody is being taken care of them in the sense that they have some place to go and they are already thinking about how they want to get after the rebuilding problem and trying to get themselves organized for that So, it's a it's a catastrophe I don't know, if you have seen the pictures on the television; they explains just a just a thousand explosive. So, - and to really get the immigrate the Governor's working out at hard and there is going to be no Katrina problem here; at least in terms of the attention by the Chief Executive of the State, I can tell you; it's a very real. He wanted very much to be here and take part in this conference and he has written out his speech that he was going to deliver tonight us. And he has asked me to give it if I would and I can't do that. No, - but Sam has read it and Sid has it. Jim didn't read and read, anyway. Sam and Sid both like that it should be given so, not to that long and I will give it. But it is anyway, and I just wanted to know this is a tragedy and its and it is still still going on. So it's very very tough going for us. Well, so we are going on to the next step topic Bob, I I think you are up with the fissile materials Thank you. The January - op-ed piece is actually is focused on the practical step of the fissile material correctly and that's what I was asked; to talk about Sid Drell and I agreed though that they might be too narrow and so I have broaden the subject to the question of fissile material controls on a on a basis. You know, we are we are looking at the prospect of moving toward a world with a fewer and fewer nuclear weapons. The the most direct way to get towards such a world is to reduce the nuclear weapons themselves. But you know, as we get too lower and lower levels of nuclear weapons, the ability and in a relatively short period of time to fabricate the additional nuclear weapons from the existing or newly produced fissile material becomes an increasingly acute break out threat. So it we international communities are really serious about moving toward fewer and fewer nuclear weapons, it's got to also be serious about dealing with the fissile material growth or problem that we see today Now you know, preventing the circumvention of nuclear arms reductions is not the only or even the most important reason that would require control fissile materials, I think the most important reason you want to do that is to deal with the thread of nuclear terrorism. I think you know, the US certainly and many other like minded countries consider this the greatest national security threat we face today. And that means you have got to both secure and fissile materials stock to prevent them getting into the hands of terrorists. But another reason to deal with the fissile material problem is that limiting the production of fissile material can avoid destabilizing competitions in fissile material production. We might be on the verge of the increased competition in producing bomb making materials in South Asia unless accompanied by a ban on production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. The current US India civil nuclear corporation deal, if in fact it is consummated could enable India to sharply increase its production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. And if it did Pakistan is likely to follow suit. And I am not terribly worried about the way the Indians maintain control of their fissile materials, I am more worried about Pakistan's ability to maintain effective control you know over extended period of time. So I don't think we should want to be seeing an increased competition in South Asia It's getting again a handle on fissile material is important now, because if the nuclear power renaissance that many people predict, actually materializes we may well see despite the efforts of Jim Timbie and his colleagues, we may well see an increase in the number of facilities world wide that can produce bomb making materials, and with that an expansion of the fissile material stocks. The US and international response at least so far to this threat of growing fissile materials stocks is hardly been adequate. Multilateral negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty had been stalled for over a decade. Nunn-Lugar Assistance Programs as well as US-Russian bilateral arrangements like the Highly Enriched Uranium purchase agreement have made a lot of progress in securing Russian nuclear materials and converting at least some of those materials to non weapons usable nuclear you know power reactor fuel. But as Matt pointed out in his paper, a lot remains to be done. And only belatedly the problem do potentially vulnerable Highly Enriched Uranium at a lot of civil research reactor sites around the world is is being addressed So initial steps have been taken to deal with this problem but the magnitude of the problem is huge. Today the global stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium is between 1,400 and 2,000 metric tones. The global stockpile of separated Plutonium is about 500 times. Together they could provide enough fissile material for over a 100,000 nuclear weapons and I think that's even a conservative estimate I would have said over 200,000. I mean if you use low assumptions you get to 100,000, but you can build it up to to 200 and even more. And these numbers are still growing. Now to reduce the the risk inherent in this growing stocks of the fissile material, I think a more ambitious approach is needed and we have got to involve more countries in the process. One important step would be negotiation of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut off Treaty, the subject I was asked at to speak about. The United States and other nuclear powers have long favored an FMCT that banned only the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. I suggest that the scope of this prohibition could be broadened to include also a prohibition on the production of Highly Enriched Uranium for civil purposes, you know lots of reactors around the world that are used to produce the medical isotopes and do research that are fuelled by the HEU. I am suggesting that producing HEU for those purposes be prohibited. And also we should consider either banning or phasing out the production of Highly Enriched Uranium for non explosive military uses, mainly that is reactors for naval propulsion. There is a very large stock pile of Highly Enriched Uranium that's already been set aside for fueling naval reactors, sectored about an year ago or so when we allocated a number of a lot, 128 times for that purpose, said this will enable us not to have to produce HEU for naval reactors for I think 50 years or something like that. We have a huge stock at this. And you know as further reductions are taken in nuclear weapons, some of that HEU can be applied to the naval reactors, in case there is in case we run out you know in the year 2050 or something like that. So I think we should broaden the scope of a FMCT. In contrary to the position that the US has taken in recent years, I think the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty should provide for international verification measures. The treaty that was tabled by the US a few years ago says that verification should be done entirely by national means rather than by international means. And 20 years after Reykjavik, I think trust but verify still makes good sense. Now in parallel with a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, I think we should also pursue a multilateral voluntary arrangement that I call FMCI, Fissile Material Control Initiatives. And unlike the FMCT, which will address only new production of material, an FMCI would address preexisting stocks of fissile material. Now all countries possessing fissile material, whether civilian or military, whether safeguarded or un safeguarded, be encouraged to join the treaty. This would include permanent five, you know other nuclear power is not in the NPT, countries like Japan and Germany, non nuclear states that have safeguarded fissile materials, there would be a couple of dozen counties that would be urged to join and they would be encouraged to do a variety of things. First, make regular declarations regarding the size and the composition of their fissile material holdings and to make these declarations in as disaggregated, if were as possible. Second, apply the highest standards of physical protection to their fissile materials, whether civilian or military. Third, to declare as access to their nuclear weapons requirements as much as fissile material as possible. Fourth, make excess material available for IAEA safeguards as soon as practicable and finally convert fissile materials to forms unusable for nuclear weapons as soon as possible. Now what I mean by that is either down blending of HEU to a Low Enriched Uranium for use in power reactors or using weapons Plutonium in blending with Uranium compounds and using it as fuel, burning it as fuel and the the spent fuel is then unusable in in nuclear weapons Now some countries are already doing some of these things. But there are many countries that are not doing any of these things. And I think this you know voluntary arrangement like this needs to be started, to go upset your arrangement overtime would be to make FMCI an increasingly rigorous, inclusive in terms of the countries involved, comprehensive in terms of the coverage of the materials and perhaps even legally binding, at least for some of its elements and to be a broad regime for the management in this fissile materials worldwide Let me just close by you know what are the prospects for the FMCT and FMCI. For, FMCT I think China and India really hold the key to whether this can be done. India first, in 1999 when the US was engaged with Indian bilateral discussions after the May 1998 tests, the Indians told us that all they wanted was a credible minimum deterrent capability. They weren't seeking parity with China or any other country. We asked them, when are you going to have that? Soon, come back to us in a few years, we may be there. The question is now whether India's strategic objectives have broadened. China has suggested that it has no present fissile material production needs. But it has to had to get uncertain future, and certainly primarily because of US missile defense plans. That's what the Chinese say. And FMCI, I think the main the main concern by a number of countries is transparency there. You know countries like Russia, like China don't have transparency and it may take a while to breakdown that resistance. So I think FMCI is going to be a prolonged an incremental process. He is giving me the signals. So I will stop right there Thank you well. I have a question, is the capability of identifying fissile material so good, the signature that is established forensically that say, came from Iran or it came from India, or it came from North Korea in such a way that if it does turn up and a very bomb in Manhattan for example, we would know, and that in a sense is a deterrent, because you can identify the culprit. So that's my question. Is it scientifically possible to actually identify where the manufacture is I can put my two cents and ask others you know, have a better feel for this than I do. You know we have a you know, a so called library of signatures, but it is not a complete library. We have some. If we had particles from a nuclear device exploded you know, not yet exploded, we might be lucky enough to match that up with the origin of the act of where it was produced, for example. But the question is what would you do then? Let's say you trace it to a certain reactor in Russia. Would we assume that the Russian authorities had knowingly assisted you know, a terrorist group in in building this device. You know we wouldn't know, and that moment the number one concern we would have is working with the Russians to find out you know, who might have gotten hold this material. You know it wouldn't be to point the finger you know, at the Russians and or take retaliatory action against Russia. We would need their total cooperation at that point. We would be worried about a second and a third device going off. So you know again, I mean, and what I am told is we would a, we would be lucky to be able to make a match, and two, the time it would take at least today to make that match could be weeks and weeks and weeks and perhaps may never happen. And you know the an American President is going to want to know who did it, you know, right away, and he or she is not going to be able to get a quick answer to that question. Sergio -? I would like to ask a question. The discussions that have been going on, on the FMCT it is of course preliminary discussions as we know, many countries are saying that to them it is very important that the stocks be included in the future negotiation, on future treaty. And to indicate the effort that in some places including the United States, stocks are considered to be necessary for our future use. What do you think that this question how much that controversy would make more difficult in your view to achieve an FMCT besides the all the other difficulties that have in it I question some the motives of some of the countries who want to deal with existing stocks. I understand you know, the rhetoric is look, the US already and the other nuclear powers already have so much of these stuff, we shouldn't simply say no more, we should deal with the existing stocks. I understand that. But there are some altering about this. I mean, the Egyptians say, let's deal with existing stocks. I think their objective is to get at Israel, you know Israelis current you know, un safeguarded material weapon, whatever you whatever you say. Pakistan wants to deal with existing stocks wants to use the mechanism of this multilateral treaty to try to you know achieve greater balance with India than it thinks it has right now. I think that if you try to deal with existing stocks you will import into this negotiation all kinds of bilateral problems which will make this unworkable. I think what you can tell the countries that want to deal with existing stocks, is that we are prepared with other countries that have fissile material to do it separately. And that's what you know, this FMCI that I have suggested you know, that demonstrates that we are prepared to make an effort to deal with this problem, to you know, transparency at first, but you know, more under safeguards and then to try to render it unusable in nuclear weapons. But this take a while Thank you there. I would I would like to congratulate for doing a very, very nice job and doing a comprehensive performance. I would like to underscore the importance ____ initiative, the importance of the accounting of the fissile materials and to do that as quickly as possible. But then I also want to point out the perfect of the ____ and that is I think I have been working with Russians for a dozen years on that subject and initially it is what we call the the Plutonian Registry Project. And what we thought we would do is to try to get the Russians give an accounting elementarial balance in terms of what thought that would be sufficiently insensible that they would actually tackle it. And that they would perhaps pattern it to some extent after we do in this country. What we did was called Plutonium Published it was called Plutonium: The First 50 years. And that pointed out the difficulty of doing this. And why the Russians have absolutely no intention of doing this. And what that study showed that we either made or purchased on the order of a 111,000 kilograms of plutonium over the years. We now have 95,000 roughly left. And so a whole of Plutonium is gone. And so we tried to account for where it is. We blew a lot of it up, so we could account for that. But in the end the bottom line was 3,400 kilograms of that Plutonium we have declared on waste, and we couldn't put our fingers on that right now. You know, we think we know where it is. But that's 3,400 kilograms. 2,800 kilograms, we declared as MUF, you know as you well know, Material Unaccounted For. We are not allowed to call that anymore, so we call it inventory differences nowadays. So so that's 6,200 kilograms of Plutonium just as Plutonium, that's not HEU that we can't put our fingers on. Now can you imagine, you know somebody having to tell the President Putin that they cant account for at least that much and so when he himself and many of the high level people in Russia have said, we can assure you that not one gram of Plutonium is missing. And so there's absolutely no incentive for the Russians to go through this. And yet if you don't do the accounting you can't do what we call MPCNA, you know, the P the Russians appreciate, physical protection. The C is control, that's not fully appreciated. The A is actually pushed way into the background. And so somehow what we have to do not only for material security, which Matt is going to talk about next, but unfortunately I want to be class with Bill Perry at that time. So I am going to say my piece out. So you have to do the P, the C and the A, and A is really difficult. But the A can also be a substantial step along the way that if we ever get to no nuclear weapons, we have to have a sense of what materials are there. And you are not going to do that after the fact. You have to do that before. And then in the process you should also look at this issue of the fingerprinting that Tom asked before. And quite frankly, today the only country where I had any you know, real sense of confidence, that I know where it came from, is North Korea. You know from Russia But you held it in your hand, that's what -. I know, I would be I would ask to hold that in there, to make sure If I can just jump in on what you just said, its important to figure out a way to overcome this set of problems soon, because to do that balancing that material balance, it turned out when we were doing it in the United States, to be critical to have the guys who were doing it at the time and figure out from them, how does this number add up with that number, oh, well we you know, changed the way the reactor is operating in this month and we didn't write that or whatever. And so as the people die off or retire you lose knowledge, as the production records are destroyed you lose knowledge, as the production records are converted to electronic form and then the original swung away, you end up never being able to certify that they are authentic anymore and you lose authenticity opportunities. So there are opportunities that are vanishing day by day. Well, I am getting this, kind of like done. So we need to be - Does this mean that 6,200 kilograms when assuming you had all these agreement, 6,200 kilograms would be unaccounted for Correct you will never be able to verify closer than that because we just don't know closer than that. They are not, and what happened and by the way those numbers are bigger HEU, we have finally managed to get the HEU the ____. Six hundred or so. There are a lot of Scott Sagan's planes flying around with nuclear weapons. There is an old saying it, a question without an answer becomes a fact. And I think these are the facts and it seems to me you have go to zero base of accounting and acknowledge that you are not going to get there. Because if you at least go to accounting now and here is the inventory, you have got something to measure, I guess in the future. The longer you try to basically obscure or hide this fact, the harder it gets because you don't ever have placed one. And that's where one leads into have a kind of system where countries are forced to try to do the accounting, because you force people to you know sit down, they haven't spoken to each other, they have got to somehow explain these things. Its better that they be forced to do that. Then they can just continue to sweep it under the rug, and that has been swept under the rug for too long And in non nuclear weapons states, IAEA safeguards create a multilateral level of discipline on the accounting for nuclear material, because you have to be able to show the inspectors what you have done on your accounting, that doesn't exist on the weapon states. Through it how many countries you are estimating or involved? Do you have an account of site? Well I mean you have you know, that ____ by the material and accounted for a Japanese you know, reprocessing facilities, you know they have huge amounts of material. I mean any of these bulk handling facilities are going to be huge and those will be under safeguards and they are just you know, recognize the euphemism is for that You know unaccounted for the -. - but there are large quantities of material is as Matt says in the nuclear weapon states, in Russia in particular. Bob, what does the other ones do, as missile weapon states, Britain, France same situation there? It is like -is somewhat smaller than demand and accounted for so it's smaller. And also the Europeans the British and the French for example have their civilian programs under Uranium safeguards. So that's accounted for pretty well. The weapons programs are different. But how about Russia? What is our estimate? Russia is an unfortunate situation, because during the Cold War, the emphasis, as it was in the United States, was more on production than on keeping track of every gram. We were perhaps fortunate that we had the problem Numac in 1965 and so we got serious about accounting. And they never really did. They had an accounting system that wasn't designed for this purpose. They had an accounting system that was based on trying to make sure that you have gotten your production quota and so they measured amount into a facilitated amount out of the facility and as long the amount out was then about three percent of the amount in, it was written off as normal losses to waste. And in fact at many facilities, the difference between output and input was defined as losses to exit. So you are defining a way that mere possibility that something might have gone missing. And today, at [1:38:57] ____ and most places they haven't gone back and done a real measured inventory. They will have a room with you know, a gazillion counter stores in it and they do have a paper record of what's in everyone of counter stores. But you know those counter stores have been there for decades and they got some credit black seals on them that anybody could open it up and put it on the seal and no body is going to back and measure it, its what's on the paper, still what is on the counter store. And one reason they have it is because of the personal responsibility system. So the guy who is the manager of that area or rather counter store, if there is something missing he is personally responsible for the fact that that's missing. And so he is bound to try and make sure no body goes and measure to see if that anything is missing, right. So there needs to be some kind of a you know, like like we have every year a library will have a time when you can return your over due books without paying a fine and to get the accounting done Man, if you want to just take a wild guess, its 6,200 in the US missing Plutonium, what do you think of this in Russia, just a wild guess. Twice as much? It's greater than 10 times certainly Greater than what? Greater than 10 times and I would say probably greater than 20 times on HEU. 10 times you wouldn't go that far. I went to Russia with the demand to having to look for all this. And one of the places where I thought I would find the ____ because for example, rocky flats are Plutonium fabrication facility, we wound up having 13 tones of Plutonium as waste in the end, including several 10s of kilograms of Plutonium in the duct that had vaporized from casting, that's part of this MUF material. You know how in the world that you are going to make for that. So we had a lot in the waste. I want the Russians to look at their waste. The good news was that the Russians consider this stuff so precious that they actually never put anywhere close to as much of the waste as we did. Right, they stripped it out better than we did. So I think they have a bigger MUF you know, in terms of the inventory differences, but they don't have as much in waste that as we do. So I would say less than 10 tones, but you know, in the end 10,000 kilograms makes a lot of bombs Well, saying in the context of zero nuclear weapons, how would you handle that? You know, you can't I mean you have to that put you off the record let's say if you are trying to solve a terrorist problem it's I mean, that part of it is gone. You know we didn't even cover the fact that total holdings of HEU total in the world is almost two million kilograms. And total holding of Plutonium in world is almost two million kilograms. And so if you are trying to look for a few 10s of kilograms out of that it's hopeless. So for terrorism you have to do lots of other things including what I would think has worked with the Russians on sting operations, is actually go and try to find that stuff that might have already gotten away. In terms of getting the zero, you know the best you can do now is to at least put those pieces together and I have always felt since we can never beat the numbers game, the transparence has to be in the integrity of the safeguard system. I don't lose sleep over the US you know, Plutonium holdings, because I know how much I have to justify to write one gram of Plutonium off. So our our system has integrity. The Russian system doesn't yet have integrity. And so in the end they all have the reason if you are in Pakistan where we are worried about how they are going to keep partly because that has to have integrity of that system You don't think this means that any sort of zero nuclear weapon system would have to have hedge because of this problem. No, if you can just there is no way you can ever say that you don't have many, many, many, many 10s of kilograms of that stuff out there somewhere, because in the end you can extract it from the waste, you can extract it from any place out there. There is just too much. So you have to have an understanding, there are going to be many, many 10s of weapons worth of material out there somewhere that someone has access to. You have to build into whatever system you have We picked up enough of it coming up over coming over orders, that is arguably of Russian origin, to give you cause about not just the accounting, but the insider theft and the corruption problem But then how would you have handle zero if that agreement - I mean if you are a responsible government, you would edge against what the other side could do. You will never have verification that's more accurate than the country understands itself where its material assets just are. Then it is better that you hide the equal something that it is a deterrent, or is it better that you begin with a minimum deterred process. Or have virtual ____ you know, not completed weapons, but material No, I think my question how would you handle it? Good question. Exactly. - and then work at what's out there gradually recognizing the size of the problem. I was just going to say that there seems to be a sense around the table that this is static problem. We have just had a conversation in Moscow last week with senior very senior former weapons head of the weapons complex who was talking about a new willingness on the Russian side to work with the Americans on nuclear forensics, which is new, I mean the Russians were never keen because they were so worried about being bashed by the American side, that they weren't particularly keen to work on nuclear forensics with us. But if they are willing now to work more in a more broad ranging way on this serious problem and both the technical and political issue in the end, we may be able to fine, you know, some progress over time. We are not going to solve this problem easily. But its not going to be a static problem. It's not going to stay in place It is so difficult for a student, for an applicant, to get into Stanford, that I have sometimes become convinced that there are not any students here. There are some, and that's where Bill we actually are people to teach students here. So Bill is slightly better I guess. It's a guess Today is just we are going to get Sam Nunn also with us, he has agreed to do that, and today's topic is the road to zero nuclear weapons Well, best of luck to you Sam. We start with the proposition that there are how many bombs worth material missing around the world that Nobody knows, that's the key to it. Well, 1,200 bombs at least. You said more than that. I wouldn't start with that. But it's not its not but the thing is that now listen, right, it's by no means obvious that it's missing. Very likely that this these uncertainly that [1:46:24] ____ talked about in the US accounting, if I have to bet money, I would bet there is not a single bombs worth of stuff that actually got stolen from the United States. I could be wrong but if I were betting that's the way I would bet. And so you know, its no where near as grim as you may but when you are thinking about trying to verify, yes I know that this country has eliminated all its nuclear weapons and all the fissile material that could be used to make nuclear weapons. That's when you are lost. You cant possibly do that This is going to be same case with chemicals and biological it is the same case with any kind of massive inventories Right, mass inventories built up without much effort. I think in the long run, you are going to have to have a lot of hedges that at the end of this process -. And a lot of trust built on yeah. And you got have a lot of restraint whether the states listen to the additional protocol that Plutonium is not really going to be any good without tested. You can make a uranium gun type, but not Plutonium. It turns out that our next topic is securing nuclear stockpiles and that's going to change route. I have gotten into a -. And I suggest that we take a very short break.