IAEA floats atom fuel supply plan to ease bomb risk

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog has floated a plan for an international uranium fuel supply bank to stem the spread of nuclear weapons know-how, but the idea faces resistance among developing nations.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and industrialised nations see multilateral uranium-enrichment centres as the key to slaking rising demand for nuclear energy without developing nations building proliferation-prone plants on their own soil.

An IAEA-supervised fuel repository would provide enriched uranium from industrialised nations' stocks if recipients meet qualifications like an impeccable non-proliferation record.

U.S. President Barack Obama gave the concept a key lift in an April speech on his vision of nuclear disarmament when he said a fuel bank would give any country the benefits of peaceful nuclear power if they renounced nuclear weapons.

But emerging nations such as South Africa and Egypt fear "multinationalising" control over the nuclear fuel cycle would curb their right to home-grown atomic energy for electricity and cast a cloud on any country that opts to go it alone.

Proponents say the decades-old idea has become more urgent given Iran's expansion of an enrichment industry while curbing the IAEA access needed to verify it cannot be covertly diverted to bomb-making. Iran denies any such intent.

More impetus has also come from North Korea's nuclear test blast and from an IAEA forecast that demand for nuclear energy, most visibly so far in countries across the conflict-ridden Middle East, will almost double over the next generation.

A proposal sent by IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on Wednesday to its 35-nation governing board for consideration in June would set up a stockpile of low-enriched uranium in an IAEA-run supply centre in a country to be determined.