Strategic Asia 2010-11: Asia's Rising Power and America's Continued Purpose

The Implications of Expanded Nuclear Energy in Asia

executive summary This chapter assesses likely trends in nuclear energy and nonproliferation within Asia in the next two decades and examines the implications for the U.S. main argument: Asia’s rapid growth in nuclear power use will significantly influence safe and secure operation of nuclear facilities, the global nuclear supply chain, and the potential for further nuclear weapons proliferation. Although further growth may occur in nuclear power entrant states in Southeast Asia, the spread of nuclear technologies will not necessarily lead to more proliferation as long as the U.S. and other powers can ensure security alliances and can integrate pariah states such as North Korea and Burma into the international system. Similarly, Asian powers play a major role in supporting international efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. policy implications: • Ensuring safe and secure operations of nuclear power plants in Asia is clearly in U.S. interests because a major accident or an attack on such a facility would likely harm the prospects for further expansion of nuclear power worldwide. • To remain economically competitive, U.S. nuclear companies must leverage corporate partnerships and demonstrate that they can build plants on time and within budget. • Stopping further enrichment and reprocessing plants is unlikely to occur, but the U.S. should lead efforts to require more effective means of monitoring and safeguarding these facilities and to limit such plants to allies and currently nuclear-armed states. • Shoring up security alliances will serve as an effective means of nonproliferation. In particular, redoubling coordinated efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons in North Korea will help quell the desire for such weapons in Japan and South Korea. Nuclear Energy and Nonproliferation Charles D. Ferguson is President of the Federation of American Scientists. He can be reached at . The Implications of Expanded Nuclear Energy in Asia Charles D. Ferguson Relatively rapid nuclear energy developments in Asia will significantly influence safe and secure operation of nuclear power plants, supply and demand for all components of the nuclear fuel cycle, and potential for further proliferation of nuclear weapons programs. These issues will have profound regional and global consequences. If a major accident or attack, for instance, were to occur at a nuclear power plant in Asia, such an event could quell the demand for nuclear power worldwide. The concern is that overly fast growth in nuclear power plant construction may outstrip a country’s ability to train enough highly skilled personnel to operate, guard, and inspect the plants and thus ensure the highest standards of safety and security. Concerning demand, in the past few years Asia has been the primary region for construction of new nuclear plants, and this demand is projected to continue for the next several years to few decades. The global supply chain has struggled to respond, however, because of the past two decades of comparatively stagnant global demand. Following on the heels of Asian nuclear demand is increasing interest in several Middle Eastern states for their first nuclear plants. Further, within Asia itself, Southeast Asian states such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam appear on the verge of ordering their first nuclear plants. Although meeting these demands may further stress the international supply chain, this renewed interest in nuclear power presents economic opportunities for the major Asian states that already produce nuclear power, such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea, to supply entrant states. 144 • Strategic Asia 2010–11 Because nuclear technologies are inherently dual-use, in that facilities that can make fuel for peaceful reactors can also produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, increasing demand for nuclear power in Asia and the rest of the world raises the danger of further nuclear weapons proliferation. This danger will be especially acute if more non–nuclear weapon states acquire the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel: the two dual-use technologies. The challenge thus is to ensure that the spread of the peaceful atom does not result in uncontrolled use of these technologies. Increased peaceful nuclear energy use, however, will not necessarily lead to increased proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia. Although enrichment and reprocessing facilities can give states latent weapons capabilities, this technological capacity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for proliferation. The political imperative to pursue proliferation is the key driver.1 This imperative can arise from the perceived need to protect against neighbors’ or rivals’ nuclear or non-nuclear military capabilities, from the...