Energy – Inaugural and Nuclear

by Brad Peck

The downside to being across the street from the White House is the Chamber is right in the middle of the security zone for the inauguration tomorrow.  So we get a bonus two days off this year.  I decided to take a walk downtown anyway, and D.C. is hopping.  Normally on the weekends crowds are lighter and clustered around the museums and monuments, but with snow flurries fluttering and poli-tourists flittering there is electricity all around.

Sorry rest of the world, I know you are working, so here is an item of interest from the New York Times I picked up on the metro:

The United Arab Emirates has bested other oil-rich Persian Gulf countries by becoming the first to conclude a legally binding nuclear cooperation agreement with the Bush administration. It deserves even greater congratulations for forswearing uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. Those are the key processes for making fuel for nuclear reactors — or nuclear weapons. Many countries have these agreements — known in the business as 123’s — with Washington, which allow them to buy American nuclear reactors and fuel. But none have made that important concession.

Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, all members in good standing have the right to make their own fuel. But the temptations are considerable and the technology far too easy to divert (see Iran). That is why the U.A.E’s choice is so especially important, and why other nuclear suppliers should be encouraging their clients to make the same choice.

Nuclear energy is one way to address climate change, and developing countries — that agree to international rules for inspections — must have the same access to nuclear technology as the developed world.