Letter to Congress on Laser Enrichment Facility in North Carolina
by Leonor Tomero [contact information]
October 28, 2009
Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair
United States Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Washington, DC
Dear Chairwoman Boxer:
We wish to bring to the attention of the Committee our concern about the proliferation risks of a specific uranium enrichment method known as laser isotope separation (LIS) that Global Laser Enrichment, a partnership led by GE-Hitachi, plans to use in its proposed uranium enrichment facility in Wilmington, NC. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing the license request for this facility.
LIS poses significant proliferation risks due to difficulties in detecting facilities using this technology. Laser separation enables an enrichment facility to be smaller in size and to use less power than other methods of enrichment such as centrifuge or gaseous diffusion which are currently used to make low-enriched uranium fuel for use in nuclear power plants. If the United States uses LIS technology and demonstrates that it is a commercially viable technology, it will dangerously undermine U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts by making it much more difficult to dissuade other countries from acquiring this technology, and may be used as a justification by countries seeking to hide their enrichment activities. Previous laser enrichment research and laboratory-sized activities went undetected for several years in South Korea and Iran. The former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, noted in February 2003 that the IAEA would continue to have problems detecting such research activities.
Unfortunately, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has no plans to examine this central issue in the course of licensing the Wilmington facility, but will only examine security plans for the facility and measures to protect the classified technology it will employ.
Accordingly, we strongly encourage the Committee to hold a hearing examining the proliferation risks of using laser enrichment technology in the U.S. nuclear fuel industry and the need for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include such considerations in its licensing proceedings.
Finally, we enclose two articles on this issue by Dr. Charles Ferguson, of the Council on Foreign Relations and Dr. James Acton providing background on this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
John Isaacs
Executive Director, Council for a Livable World
Leonard S. Spector
Director (DC Office), James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Dr. James Acton
David Albright
Executive Director, Institute for Science and International Security
Dr. Barry Blechman
Co-Founder, Henry L. Stimson Center
Tom Clements
Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator, Friends of the Earth
Dr. Charles Ferguson
Senior Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on Foreign Relations
Ambassador Robert Grey (Ret.)
Director, Bipartisan Security Group
Susan Gordon
Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund
Senior Scientist and Co-Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director, Tri-Valley CARES
The Honorable Mike Kopetski
Former Member of Congress, (D.OR)
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis
Director, Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative, New America Foundation
Dr. Priscilla McMillan
Associate Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
Gary Milhollin
Executive Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control
Dr. Ivan Oelrich
Acting President, Federation of American Scientists
Dr. Douglas B. Shaw
Assistant Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs
Susan Shaer
Executive Director, Women’s Actions for New Directions
Rev. Robert W. Tiller
Leonor Tomero
Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
Dr. Frank von Hippel
Professor of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Gerald Warburg
Former Senate Leadership Staff
Dr. Leonard Weiss
Affiliate, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
Dr. Peter Wilk, MD
Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility
** Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only
The attachments referred to in the letter are ”Nuclear Power, Disarmament and Technological Restraint” by James Acton, Survival, Vol 51 No. 4, August-September 2009, pp.101-126; and “Laser Enrichment: Separation Anxiety,” by Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 61, no. 2, March– April 2005, pp. 14–18, available online.
Several experts also previously sent comments (available online) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Leonor Tomero 202-546-0795 ext. 2104 ltomero@armscontrolcenter.org
Leonor Tomero is the Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation where her work focuses on nonproliferation, nuclear weapons, nuclear reprocessing, North Korea, and nuclear terrorism. Tomero is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Law and Politics at Georgetown University. She has published letters and articles in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, TomPaine.com, and Hartford Courant and is frequently quoted in national print, TV, and radio media.