More than We Need: Projected World Uranium Enrichment Capacity

Abstract

With Americas latest offer to facilitate the construction of six to twelve nuclear submarines for Australia, a question has arisen how these boats might befueled. The attached study on the worlds projected uranium enrichment capacity, however, eliminates one concern for sure: We wont need to buildadditional enrichment plants to keep this project on track. As Ruaridh Macdonald of MIT makes clear in his study, More than We Need: Projected WorldUranium Enrichment Capacity, there currently is an oversupply of global enrichment capacity, which is unlikely to be exhausted anytime soon. There is aworry, however, that despite this oversupply, countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey, might build enrichment plants that could also supportnuclear weapons options. In the upcoming Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this February, the United States and other like-minded nationsshould make it clear that there is no legitimate economic reason for states to go down this path.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 26, 2021
Accession Number
AD1152007

Entities

People

  • Ruaridh Macdonald

Organizations

  • Nonproliferation Policy Education Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arms Control
  • Birds
  • Construction
  • Energy Systems
  • Governments
  • International Relations
  • International Security
  • Materials Processing
  • National Security
  • Naval Vessels
  • North America
  • Nuclear Energy
  • Nuclear Fuels
  • Nuclear Materials
  • Nuclear Power Plants
  • Nuclear Powered Submarines
  • Nuclear Propulsion
  • Nuclear Reactors
  • Research Reactors
  • United States

Readers

  • Industrial Economics
  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security
  • Systems Analysis and Design