Long-term demand for nuclear fuel is high as demonstrated by the continued rise in activities such as uranium mining and milling, enrichment, and fuel fabrication. At a recent international conference in Beijing on nuclear energy, IAEA officials stated that the global financial crisis is unlikely to deter the increasing long-term demand for new nuclear power plants. In order to limit the proliferation risk, the IAEA suggested the concept of multinational nuclear arrangements and member countries followed up with various related proposals. A few projects at the front-end of the nuclear fuel cycle are reviewed in the context of such multinational arrangements. Policies of two uranium-producing countries, Mongolia (a new supplier) and Kazakhstan (a relatively new supplier) are compared. The development at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle is reviewed in the context of collaboration of supplier countries and countries with strong technological capability and demand such as Russia, France, China, Japan, and India. 

Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a visiting professor at CISAC. Her research covers the technical and policy aspects of the uranium and nuclear energy industry. Mongolia, her homeland, has a large reserve of natural uranium that it wants to develop for economic and strategic purposes. Similar to other developing nations, Mongolia also is considering nuclear power to help reduce domestic pollution and meet growing demand for electricity. In this context, Agvaanluvsan is analyzing Mongolia's uranium mining and processing policies to compare this emerging industry with parallel developments in Kazakhstan and countries in southern Africa. She also is comparing Mongolia's potential role as a uranium supplier to that of Canada's and Australia's.

Agvaanluvsan received her bachelor's (1994) and master's (1995) degrees in physics from the National University of Mongolia. From 1996-97, she studied high energy physics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. Agvaanluvsan earned her doctorate in 2002 from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, studying nuclear reactions and quantum chaos in nuclei. Following completion of her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research work in the Nuclear Experimental Physics group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In addition to Agvannluvsan's scientific and policy analysis work, in 2008 she served as an adviser to Mongolia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. Agvaanluvsan also is director of the recently established Mongolian-American (MonAme) Scientific Research Center in Ulaanbaatar, which focuses on energy, the environment and mineral processing technologies. In September 2008, she helped organize MonAme's first international meeting, the "Ulaanbaatar Conference on Nuclear Physics and Applications," in Mongolia's capital.

Abstract: China's three human spaceflights (2003, 2005, and 2008) and 2007 anti-satellite test have put the world on notice that a new geography is emerging in 21st Century space competition, which also includes several other leading Asian countries: India, Japan, and South Korea. North Korea is also desperately trying to enter the club of space-faring nations.  Why are Asian states today so interested in space?  What are their evolving capabilities, in both the civilian and military sectors? And how are these countries' activities likely to affect the interests of the United States?  This presentation will cover each of these issues, as well as emerging Obama administration space policies, particularly in regard to China.  (Dr. Moltz recently returned from research trips to South Korea and Japan, where he conducted extensive interviews with space officials and analysts. His talk is based on a book manuscript he is currently writing.)

James Clay Moltz holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs and in the Space Systems Academic Group at the Naval Postgraduate School.  >From 1993 to 2007, he worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies, where he served as deputy director from 2003-07.  Dr. Moltz is the author (most recently) of The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests (Stanford University Press, 2008).  He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and holds an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and a B.A. in International Relations (with Distinction) from Stanford University. Dr. Moltz serves as a consultant to the NASA Ames Research Center, where he chairs the Space Futures Analysis Group.

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In 2008, the iconic doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was set at five minutes to midnight-two minutes closer to Armageddon than in 1962, when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball over missiles in Cuba! We still live in an echo chamber of fear, after eight years in which the Bush administration and its harshest critics reinforced each other's worst fears about the Bomb. And yet, there have been no mushroom clouds or acts of nuclear terrorism since the Soviet Union dissolved, let alone since 9/11.

Our worst fears still could be realized at any time, but Michael Krepon argues that the United States has never possessed more tools and capacity to reduce nuclear dangers than it does today - from containment and deterrence to diplomacy, military strength, and arms control. The bloated nuclear arsenals of the Cold War years have been greatly reduced, nuclear weapon testing has almost ended, and all but eight countries have pledged not to acquire the Bomb. Major powers have less use for the Bomb than at any time in the past. Thus, despite wars, crises, and Murphy's Law, the dark shadows cast by nuclear weapons can continue to recede.

Krepon believes that positive trends can continue, even in the face of the twin threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation that have been exacerbated by the Bush administration's pursuit of a war of choice in Iraq based on false assumptions. Krepon advocates a "back to basics" approach to reducing nuclear dangers, reversing the Bush administration's denigration of diplomacy, deterrence, containment, and arms control. As he sees it, "The United States has stumbled before, but America has also made it through hard times and rebounded. With wisdom, persistence, and luck, another dark passage can be successfully navigated."

Michael Krepon is Co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and the author or editor of thirteen books and over 350 articles. Prior to co-founding the Stimson Center, Krepon worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter administration, and in the US House of Representatives, assisting Congressman Norm Dicks. He received an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Franklin & Marshall College. He also studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo, Egypt.

Krepon divides his time between Stimson's South Asia and Space Security projects. The South Asia project concentrates on escalation control, nuclear risk reduction, confidence building, and peace making between India and Pakistan. This project entails field work, publications, and Washington-based programming, including a visiting fellowship program. The Space Security project seeks to promote a Code of Conduct for responsible space-faring nations and works toward stronger international norms for the peaceful uses of outer space.

Krepon also teaches in the Politics Department at the University of Virginia.

Abstract: For the last five years CISAC affiliate David Montague has been studying the viability and implications of sustainable energy options. He first presented his work in an initial paper entitled "Sustainable Energy Independence - A National and International Security Imperative" at CISAC in 2006. It proposed an holistic approach to energy independence on a time table much shorter than the Bush administration's halfhearted approach. This seminar presents his most recent work that "peels the onion" several layers deeper from a national security perspective and quantitatively examines pro and con arguments raised about the various advocated concepts.

Dave Montague an independent consultant and CISAC affiliate, retired as President of the Missile Systems Division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in 1996. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Montague has 50 years of background in design, development and management of strategic and tactical military systems, In addition to his development expertise in both tactical and strategic strike, surveillance, and defensive systems, his experience includes the requirements, development, and national security policy issues of strategic forces and research into strategic energy issues and the viability of electric vehicles.

An Engineering graduate of Cornell University Dave is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Until recently he served on the National Research Council's Naval Studies Board. Consulting for Los Alamos and Livermore National Labs and NASA, for three years he was a member of the Los Alamos National Lab Director's Senior Advisory Group. He previously served on numerous other government advisory groups and studies, including eight years on the Navy Strategic Systems Steering Task Group, various Naval Studies Board committees, and task forces for both the U.S. Army and the Defense Science Board.

Dave has written and been a major contributor to numerous reports including the recent National Academies Report on Conventional Prompt Global Strike. He was a major contributor to the American Physical Society Report on the Science and Technology of Boost Phase Defense in Review of Modern Physics  July 2004,  and is the Author of "Restoring Trust", copyright 2001, a book on Organizational and Project Management currently available on the Web.

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The purpose of this presentation is to indicate possible ways in which nuclear power plant (NPP) projects and possibly related nuclear fuel cycle facilities (should there be any) could be subverted to hide and clandestinely support nuclear weapons development programs. The discussion here is generic in nature; however, special applicability to the newly emerging nuclear programs in the Middle East is noted. The speaker's purpose is not to provide a ‘cookbook' for would-be proliferators on how to utilize NPP projects to support clandestine weapons development programs, but rather to provide indication to the nonproliferation-minded as to what to look for and guard against when a number of new NPP projects are initiated within a short time frame in a region with limited past nuclear experience as a direct response to the Iranian quest for ‘nuclear power'. This is not to imply that there are nefarious intents behind the sudden desire to acquire nuclear power capabilities by several countries that are mostly well endowed with oil and natural gas resources. My intent here is rather to provide a general assessment on how such NPP projects might be utilized, should their national owners decide to do so in situations of "supreme national interest', as a guise for clandestine nuclear weapons programs.

Chaim Braun is a CISAC consulting professor specializing in issues related to nuclear power economics and fuel supply, and nuclear nonproliferation. At CISAC, Braun pioneered the concept of proliferation rings dealing with the implications of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology smuggling ring, the concept of the Energy Security Initiative (ESI), and the re-evaluation of nuclear fuel supply assurance measures, including nuclear fuel lease and take-back.

Braun, currently, is working on an analysis of new nuclear power plant prospects in the Middle East, and the potential for nuclear proliferation from prospective nuclear plants in industrializing countries. He also works on extensions of nuclear fuel supply assurance concepts to regional fuel enrichment plants operated on a ‘black box' mode, particularly as applied to the South Asian, Central Asian and South American regions.

Previously, Braun worked at CISAC on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors and, most recently, chaired a working group on the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, as a part of a CISAC summer study on Nuclear Power Expansion and Nonproliferation Implications.

Braun is a member of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) committees on Nuclear Economics and Assured Fuel Supplies. He is a permanent lecturer at the World Nuclear University's (WNU) One-Week Courses. Braun was a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the Non-Proliferation Trust International, and other organizations.

Before joining CISAC, Braun worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. He also managed nuclear marketing in East Asia and Eastern Europe. Prior to that, Braun worked at United Engineers and Constructors (UE&C), EPRI and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Abstract: This talk discusses the evolution of nuclear deterrence in the post-Cold War and Post-911 environment.  An examination of the historic role of deterrence and past trends in stockpile composition are discussed, and the concept of a capability-based deterrent and the implications for stockpile size, the nuclear weapons complex, and science are examined.  The role of both complex- and stockpile-transformation in enabling a capability-based deterrent is evaluated

Dr. Martz has been with Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years.  He is an authority on plutonium chemistry and metallurgy, and has lead various elements of the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos including the group responsible for pit activities, the program examining materials aging in the stockpile, leadership of the weapon design division, and most recently, was head of the New Mexico team in the recent Reliable Replacement Warhead Design study.

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Reading is available in the publications shelf (located on the left hand side of CISAC's main reception area) in a limited number of hard copies.

Charli Carpenter joined the Department of Political Science at University of Massachusetts-Amherst in Fall 2008, after teaching for four years at University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Her teaching and research interests include national security ethics, the laws of war, transnational advocacy networks, gender and political violence, war crimes, comparative genocide studies, humanitarian affairs and the role of information technology in human security. She has a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. She is the author of Innocent Women and Children: Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians, and the editor of Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. She has also published numerous articles in journals such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Dialogue and Human Rights Quarterly and has served as a consultant for the United Nations. Dr. Carpenter's current research focuses on global agenda-setting, investigating why certain issues but not others end up on the human security agenda. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she is directing a project on Transnational Advocacy Networks. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Carpenter spends her time raising two future members of the American electorate, surfing, snowboarding, and rambling about international politics at Duck of Minerva and asymmetric warfare at Complex Terrain Lab. 

Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University. 

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