By Philip Iglauer
A U.S.-based nonprofit organization released a survey of global nuclear security ahead of the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), which convenes today and Tuesday, that indicates Korea’s nuclear material is more secure than material in the United States.
The survey has implications for Korea’s civilian nuclear industry and the government’s negotiations with U.S. over the renewal of the 1974 bilateral Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement set to expire in 2014.
Korea wants permission to reprocess spent fuel, including enriching uranium, with so-called “pyro-processing” technology. The U.S. opposes including provisions for pyro-processing in a renewed agreement out of fear that resulting enriched uranium could slip into the hands of terrorists.
The security of the world’s stocks of nuclear materials is the official focus on the two-day NSS.
The Nuclear Security Index, released by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in January, divides the world in two: Those 32 nations with 1 kilogram or more of weapons-usable nuclear material and a remaining 144 countries without.
The index uses three criteria for ranking the countries that possess less than 1 kilogram ― global norms, societal factors, and domestic commitments and capacities.
It uses an additional two criteria for those countries with weapons-usable materials ― quantities and sites and security and control measures.
The United States received a score of 78 ranking 13th among the 32 nations with 1 kilogram or more of weapons-usable nuclear materials.
Korea, however, received a score of 82, four points higher than the U.S. It also ranked 13th, but among the 144 nations surveyed with less than 1 kilogram of nuclear material.
The survey may have important implications for Korea’s nuclear industry, as the nation’s energy dependent economy appears likely to expand its nuclear energy infrastructure.
Korea has about 20 nuclear reactors which provide the country some 35 percent of its electricity needs. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy set a goal of exporting 80 nuclear power reactors worth $400 billion by 2030, which would establish the country as the world’s third-largest supplier of nuclear power and a 20-percent global market.
The U.S. is a major obstacle to government designs.
The Korean-U.S. civil nuclear cooperation agreement prohibits Korea from engaging in plutonium reprocessing or uranium enrichment with materials or technolohy of American origin without first receiving U.S. government approval, because under the 1974 nuke pact such materials and technology must first meet U.S. restrictions.
Many of the nuclear reactors here use U.S.-origin technology, uranium or fuel.
Government officials consider these restrictions excessive and are seeking to relax them in a new agreement currently being negotiated.
The Obama administration and the U.S. Congress, which must approve any bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement, are worried about the number of countries possessing sensitive nuclear technologies and are opposed to Korea out of concern of tthe East Asian country's control over those materials.