|
|
|
|
|
|---|
THE PEACEFUL AND SAFE USES OF NUCLEAR
ENERGY
Dr. Hans Blix
Not all of you may be fully familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency, so let me begin with a quick
sketch. I will then describe some of our activities in channeling technical assistance to developing nations, particularly
in this part of the world. Then, I intend to talk about the generation of electricity by nuclear power, and I will
conclude with an overview of non-proliferation issues and the IAEA's safeguards system before inviting your questions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency was created in the UN family in 1957 with a dual mandate: to promote the
peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to verify States' undertakings not to divert nuclear materials for military
purposes. These remain the twin pillars of the Agency's activities today, although they have widened to encompass
practically the full spectrum of nuclear issues, including nuclear safety. The Agency - a Secretariat in Vienna
interacting with the 123 Member States - is at pains to ensure nevertheless that the necessary and appropriate
balance is maintained.
For our developing Member States the ability to access nuclear know-how, training and equipment is an important
reason for their involvement with and support for the Agency. At the same time, preventing the spread of nuclear
weapons has been and remains a very prominent item on the international political agenda and has confronted the
IAEA with significant challenges, some of which I will touch on later.
Our role in non-proliferation is relatively high profile, and will be the dominant theme of this Seminar. There
has been less attention paid in the media or the world at large to our technical assistance programmes.
Yet there are many development problems which can be - and are being - alleviated by nuclear means. Let me name
three:
It is issues like these that I want to discuss at the outset.
ARCAL
Let me focus on activities in the Latin American/Caribbean region. Many of the IAEA activities in this region are
organized within the framework of the Regional Cooperative Arrangements for the Promotion of Nuclear Science and
Technology in Latin America (ARCAL). This programme seeks to promote regional co-operation and integration in the
nuclear field and to solve common technological problems throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Many countries
represented in this Seminar participate actively in the implementation of the ARCAL Programme, which is now entering
phase III. IAEA, in an advisory role, has worked with a number of your countries in such areas as radiation protection
and application of nuclear techniques in medicine, agriculture, stock breeding, food, hydrology and the study of
renewable energy sources. Some of your co-operative accomplishments include:
· Development of a scientific infrastructure for the application of nuclear and related techniques in nutrition
and health;
· Introduction of methods for diagnosing animal diseases as well as improvement in livestock management;
· Introduction of radiation-induced plant mutation breeding techniques to produce more resistant types of
rice, barley and wheat with higher yields;
· Initiation of a detection and diagnosis system for newborn infants which can determine hypothyroidism
so that timely treatment may be given;
· Training of thousands of professionals and technicians who can increase the effectiveness of many aspects
of nuclear programmes; and
· Recycling, modification and modernization of old but valuable equipment like gamma cameras which are widely
used in medical diagnosis. Reconditioned cameras are donated to Latin American and Caribbean countries. New, they
cost around $300,000 per camera.
Nuclear Reactor - Jamaica
Back in 1981, through an IAEA extrabudgetary contribution from the USA, the Centre for Nuclear Sciences here in
Jamaica received funding to establish facilities for a 20 KW "Slowpoke" reactor which was commissioned
and tested at the University of the West Indies. The Centre has been playing a major role in the development of
peaceful uses of nuclear energy ever since. I want to extend my congratulations to the Centre for its selection
as a Centre of Excellence in 1995. This Centre has initiated a personnel radiation monitoring programme which is
operating successfully, and is providing a dosimetry service to both public and private sectors.
Health & Industry
In the health area let me mention a regional programme for the diagnosis of Hepatitis B infection by simple, inexpensive
but reliable nuclear detection methods.
The importance of this effort is reflected in the fact that 5% of the world's population is affected by this infection
and it is the chief cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer. In developing countries the incidence of the infection
is as high as 30% with literally millions of affected persons. Finding and using an inexpensive way of diagnosis
is required to prevent the spread of the disease.
In industry there is an interesting project for the application of nuclear technology to make fine measurements
and ensure process control, so as to increase quality and lower costs.
Evidence is conclusive that investment in nutrition is fundamental to improving human welfare. Improvement in a
country's nutritional status also helps reduce poverty through simply making workers more productive.
Knowledge of the nutritional status of populations is the foundation for initiating improvements in a country's
nutrition level and prevention and treatment programmes are now getting underway in many countries. However, these
programmes often lack adequate monitoring and evaluation measures. The IAEA assists by providing nuclear techniques
as tools for assessing human needs and the impact of remedial programmes. As an example, let me describe Peru's
Model Nutrition Project. The goal of the -project is improvement of child health through combating malnutrition.
Peru decided to attack its nutritional problems. During the first phase of the IAEA Model Project in Peru, the
Government is providing and delivering 540,000 breakfasts daily, over four years, to undernourished school children
in six regions of Peru. About the same number of lunches will be served to pre-school children. The IAEA has provided
equipment, supplies and nuclear techniques to assess the programme’s impact. IAEA scientists will then transfer
resulting information to the Government of Peru, the food industry and donor agencies so they can improve overall
strategies for alleviating malnutrition.
The nuclear technology involves use of tracer isotopes. The tracers used in nutrition are non-radioactive and can
be administered safely to humans, including women and children. They can be swallowed or injected. Analysis is
then done through sampling of body fluids. Such nuclear techniques enable precise measurement of nutritional factors.
The isotopes are amazing in their ability to trace foods or nutrients in the body. They can also measure the body's
reserves of nutrients and even the amount of energy a person uses.
In a second phase of the Peru Model Project the Government of Peru will provide nutritious food supplements, made
from local ingredients, to sustain the improvements made in the Phase I feeding programmes.
Other countries are closely watching this Model Project, and the IAEA's co-operative nutritional activities have
gained substantial positive attention and endorsement from expert nutrition groups around the world. The Pan American
Health Organization is already looking to the Peru Model Nutrition Project as a prototype for use in other Latin
American countries.
The IAEA is planning more such model projects for Latin American and developing countries. They will target the
most vulnerable populations. From an economic standpoint, these model projects can also help optimize use of a
country's scarce resources.
Agriculture
Next, I want to describe some of our programmes which have brought great economic benefit for agriculture in this
region.
Fruit Fly Eradication in Latin America
Use of the so-called Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is an environmentally friendly method of pest control which
can dramatically increase income from agriculture products for export. It has proven effective against major insect
pests, including several types of fruit flies, tsetse fly, and the New World Screwworm. It relies on releasing
vast numbers of male insects sterilized by low doses of radiation that mate without producing offspring.
One recent successful SIT project is the Mediterranean fruit fly eradication from Chile. This pest destroys millions
of dollars in fruit per year in infested areas and impairs a multi-billion dollar fresh fruit export industry.
In December last year, Chile announced the eradication of the pest from the country. The fly-free status will give
Chile's fruit industry access to many new markets previously closed to Chilean fruit and the economic impact on
Chile's international trade is estimated at an increase of 500 million dollars annually over the next five years.
The project was truly one of regional co-operation: irradiated insects and the expert support first came from IAEA
Sterile Insect projects in Guatemala and Mexico. Subsequently, IAEA supported the construction of a mass-rearing
and sterilization facility in Chile's Lluta Valley. Joint co-operative efforts between Chilean and Peruvian authorities
now continue in southern Peru, where the pest has already been suppressed in the Tacna Valley. Future collaboration
within an expanded IAEA project foresees expansion of the eradication activities to other fruit-producing valleys
in southern Peru.
Moving to the South East, Argentina has a fruit export programme worth 450 million dollars a year. This programme
could be expanded significantly in the absence of the Mediterranean fruit fly. The Eradication Program in Argentina,
sponsored by IAEA since 1991, is also based on the Sterile Insect Technique and is making rapid progress. It has
already achieved eradication of Medfly from the southern and central valleys of Mendoza Province. This is one of
the main fruit producing regions in western Argentina. Based on the successes of the Chilean and Argentinean projects,
there are now plans to expand Medfly control and eradication activities to other provinces in Argentina and Uruguay
in the short-term and to further South American countries in the future.
Screwworm eradication
There is another very successful eradication programme targeting the screwworm in the Latin American region, again
based on the Sterile Insect Technique. This parasite causes losses of millions in dollars each year to cattle producers
in areas which have not undergone eradication.
Mexico was declared free of screwworm in 1991 and since then, the successful eradication campaign has continued.
Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have been beneficiaries. Eradication activities are presently
in progress in Costa Rica. The goal of this effort is to free the area of the screwworm down to the Isthmus of
Panama by 1997. A production plant, which can mass rear 500 million sterile flies per week, began operating in
1976 in the Chiapas Province of Mexico. It has been instrumental in eradication programmes throughout the entire
region and even in North Africa.
I understand that the programme I just described is of much interest to Jamaica. The Government and the Jamaican
Livestock Association have expressed the intent to eradicate the screwworm from this country. Their goal is to
improve public health problems and stop economic losses to the cattle industry. These losses amount to 11.3 million
Jamaican dollars per year.
I have been informed that the Government of Jamaica will prepare a request for a Technical Co-operation Project
from FAO and IAEA to prepare and design an eradication strategy. A special commission will organize, implement
and operate the screwworm eradication campaign here. Both the Government of Jamaica and the Jamaican Livestock
Association will partially fund the eradication campaign.
The IAEA stands ready to advise and assist with FAO in a joint project. Successful eradication from Jamaica, using
the Sterile Insect Technique, would represent a potential benefit to Jamaica's economy of 2.7 million Jamaican
dollars per year.
Cuba Sugar Cane Borer
A further pest which has continued to present problems in this region is the sugarcane borer in Cuba. It causes
annual losses amounting to over $40 million USD. The IAEA has been collaborating with Cuba to provide support in
developing a total biological control package. Field testing of the control package is presently taking place.
Water supply
Another source of concern where nuclear techniques are being applied is to increase scarce water supplies. In 1994,
IAEA began an important water project in Venezuela. Caracas has experienced severe problems in water supply in
recent years - about 40 % of the water in the delivery system is being wasted by leakage.
In areas of Caracas, much of the water was contaminated and in some residential areas, water was simply not available
for many hours during the day.
To find a solution to this water supply problem, in-depth knowledge of the aquifer and of the ground water dynamics
was crucial. In August of 1994, IAEA began a Model Project with the city of Caracas to study the potential of the
Caracas aquifer for: supplying drinking water; water for industrial use; and for agricultural purposes. Environmental
isotopes were used to analyze the properties and potential of the Caracas aquifer and to identify the best areas
in which to drill new wells. The advice given helped:
· To improve and upgrade the Caracas Water Quality Control Laboratory (which monitors all of Caracas's drinking
water);
· To develop a mathematical model of the aquifer as a water management tool; and
· To advise on the actual parts of the aquifer to use for different qualities of water: drinking, irrigation
or industrial.
The benefit of the Caracas project to the population was very great. Water will now be made available to the marginal
or outlying areas of the city populated by people with very low incomes.
Peru
Two years ago the government of Peru and IAEA initiated another interesting and unusual water project. The coastal
areas in Southern Peru have the driest climate in the world. Yet, about half a million people in this area must
be provided with water.
Coastal aquifers in Peru were found to have very poor potential for high quality water development and to be polluted
with pesticides or agricultural wastes. The Peruvian Government, with assistance from IAEA scientists, decided
to search for water at a higher elevation on the Altiplano, a high plateau between Peru and Bolivia. Isotope techniques
are allowing scientists to assess the potential of these Altiplano aquifers and determine which sources are continuously
replenished and which are non-renewable.
Scientists are advising on separation of different qualities of water and identifying the uses of each. A water
delivery system will be developed for each quality water: drinking; industrial and agricultural.
Nuclear Power
Let me now turn to the most spectacular, and controversial, non-military application of nuclear technology - the
generation of electricity.
Worldwide, over 30 countries today generate electricity in nuclear power stations. There are over 430 power reactors
at 250 sites. Their history stretches back forty years, when the first such reactor, in Russia, was started up.
It is still working today. The world gets about 17 percent of its total electricity from nuclear power -- about
the same amount as it gets from hydropower. So it is a substantial contribution.
Nuclear is an environmentally benign form of electricity generation, in the sense that it produces none of the
greenhouse gases that burning fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - create in abundance. Carbon dioxide is one notable
example: if the electricity that nuclear generates were produced by coal instead, the amount of carbon dioxide
emitted in the world's atmosphere would rise by about 8% a year.
Out of concern for the risk of global warming, the world's governments have committed themselves to curbing C02
levels. Unfortunately, the rhetoric and the reality seem to be going in opposite directions. C02 emissions from
burning coal, oil and gas are increasing and there are other harmful emissions from the burning of fossil fuels
as well: sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide, as well as heavy metals that remain toxic forever.
Nuclear power is not free of problems: the initial investment costs are very substantial, and the time needed for
construction is also considerable - typically 8 years or more. Even more importantly, there are persistent public
concerns over safety, triggered in no small part by the Chernobyl power plant accident that occurred in Ukraine
exactly ten years ago. What are the answers to these problems?
· Rationalization of construction techniques;
· Safer operations; and
· Decisions on waste disposal installations.
Safety regulation is and remains a national responsibility. However, the IAEA can and does help to strengthen nuclear
safety in four ways:
· By serving as a forum where States can formulate basic standards;
· By developing binding international conventions;
· By performing safety "audits" on request I with international teams going plants around the
world to study safety-related issues and offer recommendations for improvements; and
· Lastly, by serving as a clearing-house for the exchange of information on best international practices
in the safety area, thus fostering a "safety culture" mentality worldwide.
As to the safe disposal of nuclear wastes and particularly of spent nuclear fuel, technological solutions for reliably
isolating such materials from the biosphere do exist, but the political problem of deciding on sites for the long-term
storage remains unsolved.
In this hemisphere the United States has 110 nuclear power plants. Mexico, Argentina and Brazil have operating
plants and Cuba is building one.
Mexico has two units at Laguna Verde; Argentina has the Atucha and Embalse plants; Brazil has Angra 1, with Angra
2 to come; and Cuba is seeking to revive construction of its Russian-designed reactors at Juragua. For a variety
of reasons, mostly of a financial nature, I do not see nuclear becoming a major source of electricity for Latin
America in the period immediately up ahead. As I indicated, the start-up costs are substantial - about two billion
dollars per unit. On the other hand, I can-not help wondering how countries with huge and burgeoning urban centres
like Mexico City, Rio or Sao Paulo are going to cope with electricity demand in an environmentally acceptable way,
in the decades to come, without a significant nuclear component. Yet let me be clear: it is for each national Government
and Parliament to consider and determine how best to provide energy.
There are those who yearn for the day that soft, renewable energies - solar, wind, geothermal, biomass - can make
a real and economically viable contribution to the total energy picture. But let us note that solar meets less
than one tenth of one percent of US energy needs today. Moving forward on this will surely take us well into the
next century at the speed of the state-of-the-art's progress right now. Until then, the stark choice will be between
more burning of fossil fuels, with the inevitable. environmental consequences, and nuclear, for baseload needs.
We clearly need to have coherent energy strategies to get from here to there. Many countries are going to have
to face up to this hard fact of life in the coming years, and that may well bring about a nuclear renaissance.
For the time being, it is the booming economies of Asia which are seeing most nuclear power plant construction
- in countries like Japan and South Korea. China too is adding to its nuclear component, although it - like India
- will continue to depend predominantly on coal for its energy supplies. Other, smaller Asian countries like Indonesia
and Vietnam are giving serious consideration to joining the “nuclear club” as well.
The IAEA is - let me stress - not an advertising agency for nuclear power. Several of our Member States in Europe
- like our host country, Austria - and elsewhere do not favour nuclear power generation and many of our smaller
members have little interest. Nevertheless, the Agency devotes a good deal of time and energy to its safety-related
programmes, confident in the knowledge that all States support maximizing safety and in the belief that a degree
of collective scrutiny and co-operation helps to ensure that safety remains a paramount consideration everywhere.
Non-Proliferation and Safeguards
I turn last of all to the main thrust of this seminar, which is the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the
role of the IAEA safeguards system in verifying States’ commitments in this regard.
Back in the 1960s, President Kennedy predicted that by now 20 to 30 States would have nuclear weapons. This has
simply not happened. There are still only five declared nuclear-weapon States - China, France, Russia, the United
Kingdom and the United States - and a handful of so-called threshold States, believed to have a least the capability
to assemble such weapons in short order - notably India, Israel and Pakistan. The reason for this achievement is
because a great deal of effort has been invested in curbing the spread of such fearsome weapons. We may reasonably
hope, now that the Cold War is behind us, that we are moving towards a world where nuclear weapons will become
increasingly irrelevant to national security perceptions and policies. But we are not there yet, not by a long
way.
In the meantime, the job at hand - which the Agency has helped to grapple with for over a quarter of a century
- is to try to keep as much of the military nuclear "genie" in the bottle as possible.
The cornerstones of this effort are State treaty commitments to non-proliferation. The first was the Tlatelolco
Treaty for Latin America, the global treaty is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which came into force in 1970
and which was extended indefinitely last year in New York by agreement among the parties.
The NPT is the most durable and widely supported arms control measure in history and is subscribed to today by
180 States.
The Treaty in essence sets out and codifies the bargain articulated by President Eisenhower in a speech on "Atoms
for Peace" before the United Nations General Assembly in 1953: countries renouncing acquisition or manufacture
of nuclear weapons are offered access to nuclear know-how, materials and technology for peaceful purposes. The
IAEA can be said to implement this policy: it serves as an important mechanism for the transfer of peaceful nuclear
technology and for the verification that States keep their promise not to go for nuclear weapons. There are now
a number of treaties containing commitments to nonproliferation - the Rarotonga Treaty covering the South Pacific,
the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which I mentioned, covering the Latin American region, the Pelindaba Agreement, signed
two weeks ago, establishing the African continent as a zone free of nuclear weapons, and a similar agreement in
South-East Asia. In this part of the world, Argentina and Brazil have additionally worked out a complementary bilateral
arrangement permitting mutual inspections of nuclear facilities by each side as well as by inspectors from the
IAEA.
I shall return to the basic duties of the IAEA's inspectorate - and to some of the difficult challenges it has
faced in recent years - in a moment. But first let me underline that the legal commitments made under the NPT and
our safeguards function are only two elements - albeit key elements - of the total worldwide effort to curb the
spread of nuclear weapons. Other elements that play an important role are both political and technical in nature.
On the political side, it is important to work towards detente and greater mutual confidence in regions where tensions
exist. It is no coincidence that the remaining high proliferation-risk areas are the Middle East, the Asian subcontinent
or the Korean Peninsula - areas of tension. To the extent that tensions are eased, there is less incentive to pursue
the nuclear weapon option. In my view, this is the most important element: the political motive, or rather lack
of it, to want to "go nuclear".
Secondly, nuclear proliferation is made more difficult by restraint on the part of States possessing sophisticated
nuclear know-how in their export of nuclear equipment, material and know-how. Some co-ordination among such exporters
is achieved in two multinational fora known as the Suppliers Group and the so-called Zangger Committee - after
the name of its first Chairman. These barriers may not be foolproof, but they are nonetheless very real.
I revert now to the basic features of the IAEA's safeguards system.
The fundamental objectives of the safeguards system are:
· To assure the international community that states are complying with their non-proliferation and other
"peaceful use of nuclear" undertakings,
· To deter the diversion of safeguarded materials to the production of nuclear explosives or for other military
purposes; and
· To inhibit the misuse of safeguarded facilities for producing unsafeguarded materials.
States conclude safeguards agreements with the IAEA through detailed agreements of two basic types (known internally
as 66 or 153-type agreements, the latter covering the full scope of States' declared nuclear programmes, the former
being restricted to certain specified facilities only). These agreements - about which you will hear more in the
next few days set out the rights and obligations of the IAEA as the verifier and of the sovereign, inspected State.
In contrast to the safety-related services which are rendered by the IAEA only upon invitation, under the safeguards
system the Agency has defined statutory rights, duties and responsibilities, including the right - which it has
used -.to report violations directly to the Security Council. The nuclear-weapon States are not subject to safeguards
in the same way as non-nuclear-weapon States - after all they have weapons - but they are not entirely exempt either:
they are subject to what are known as "voluntary offer" safeguard inspections, which have regard to the
peaceful sector.
Since we have only 200 inspectors (men and women) to cover some 1000 installations in some 60 countries worldwide
with a safeguards budget of some 80 million dollars, we must constantly determine how best to deploy our resources.
However, to a considerable extent this is determined for us by the amount of nuclear material a State possesses.
In other words, safeguards is a quantitatively based system. All States having a certain amount of, say, highly
enriched uranium or plutonium and the type of relevant facilities receive a number of inspections as a function
of that. We do not - and could not - concentrate only on what some people might consider "high risk"
countries. "No discrimination" is the watchword. Just as at an airport, everyone - whether dressed in
three-piece suit or with long hair, jeans and sneakers - goes through the same checks.
The techniques used are multiple in nature. The basic element is "nuclear accountancy and control" -
checking the books and then verifying that the quantity and quality of materials in the inventory tally. Another
element is containment and surveillance-remote cameras track movements at strategic points at nuclear facilities
and tamper-proof seals are placed at key access points and on other items so that we can be sure nothing happens
between inspection visits. During these periodic physical inspection visits, samples can be taken for analysis.
Until the 1990s, this system worked to general satisfaction. The Agency has indeed been able each year to certify
that it had not detected any event indicating the diversion of a significant amount of material which was placed
under Agency safeguards. (In our terminology, significant quantity means 8 kg. of plutonium or 25 kg. of highly
enriched uranium). Then at the beginning of this decade came the case of Iraq. After the Gulf War, under a special
mandate given to the IAEA by the Security Council and which Iraq had to accept as part of the cease-fire, we obtained
unique and sweeping rights to go anywhere, any time throughout Iraq to map and neutralize what turned out to be
a substantial clandestine nuclear weapons programme, about which even intelligence services apparently knew little
or nothing. It says much about the closed nature of Iraqi society that they were able to pursue a secret effort
over 10 years with some 10,000 people costing billions of dollars without this coming to the surface. After the
Gulf War, and through the work of IAEA inspectors, it was possible to identify how the Iraqis, inter alia using
natural uranium mined in their own country, had tried to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make weapons
and then marry that up with a delivery system. By the most recent calculations, Iraq may have been less than two
years away from its goal when the Gulf War occurred, which destroyed the bulk of their nuclear facilities. Any
installations of weapons-related significance that escaped were demolished by the Iraqis subsequently under our
supervision, along with some items of equipment linked to a bomb-making effort.
Our inspectors, like those of the UN, are still in Iraq today and will continue to monitor that there is no attempt
to revive the clandestine programme. Although the case of Iraq demonstrated the need for strengthening the safeguards
system to give it greater capability of discovering any secret installations, it is clear that such intrusive,
investigative powers as we have in Iraq will not be acceptable by sovereign States in normal circumstances.
Then I come to the case of North Korea - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, to be more precise, or DPRK.
The DPRK signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985 but waited a number of years before they concluded a comprehensive
safeguards agreement and gave us an inventory of nuclear materials. It became apparent to the Agency fairly soon
that the DPRK had produced more than the small amount of plutonium they claimed they had - but how much more we
could not learn and still do not know. At about the same time, the Agency became aware also of two locations at
the main nuclear site that appeared relevant to the storage of nuclear wastes from which we could derive additional
knowledge. However, the Agency was denied access to those. After a prolonged period in which the IAEA was obliged
to report North Korean violations to the Security Council, and the DPRK withdrew from membership of our Agency,
a situation of relative deadlock prevailed. This was unblocked, though not completely, by an "Agreed Framework",
a bilateral instrument between the DPRK and the United States signed in October 1994. Under the terms of this instrument
the DPRK agreed to freeze its graphite-moderated reactors and related facilities and will be provided with two
large nuclear power generating plants that are expected to become operational some time after the turn of the century.
The Security Council, which considered the "Agreed Framework", requested the IAEA to monitor the freeze.
This, we are doing.
We have two or three inspectors permanently on station in the DPRK to monitor the freeze and to ensure that the
North Koreans live up to their side of the bargain. However, there is little beyond that which our inspectors are
currently able to do, and I cannot predict how or when the situation will evolve.
Looked at in a more positive light, I believe the Iraq and DPRK episodes have provided a powerful additional stimulus
to efforts already underway to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the safeguards regime. We are in
the process of submitting to our Board of Governors a package of measures which in essence seek more information
from states and more access to sites. They also involve the use of modern and sophisticated techniques, such as
the analysis of samples taken at or near nuclear installations which permit us to verify, by the very faint "signatures"
which nuclear activities leave in water, vegetation and soil, the nature of the work recently conducted and so
compare that to what we know and have been told, as a cross-check.
We are already implementing a first part of this new programme, about which you will be hearing more later in the
Seminar, and I am hopeful that the second and more ambitious part will be approved before the year is out. That
part will entail additional, specific authority, going beyond our existing safeguards mandate, whereas the part
one measures focus on things we can implement within the scope of existing agreements.
Trafficking
There is one last point I would like to touch on before concluding, and that is the relatively new risk that has
emerged of nuclear or radioactive materials being smuggled and illegally traded. In today's world of booming international
travel and easy border crossings, there have been a number of cases of radioactive materials appearing on the black
market-notably in Western Europe. The breakup of a nuclear superpower, the former Soviet Union, has added to fears
- and perhaps to opportunities - in this regard. There is a dual risk here - of sensitive, maybe even weapons-grade,
material falling into the wrong hands; and a danger to public health if such materials are transported without
taking proper precautions.
Police, customs officials, international bodies and governments have become increasingly alert in this regard.
The IAEA, for its part, has concentrated on helping with the hands-on training of those responsible for the physical
protection of such materials in those of our Member States - for instance in republics of the former Soviet Union
-asking for such help. Training is carried out both in their own countries and in Western nations, where staff
can benefit from the experience of others working in the same field. The second area where we are active is in
building up a centralized data base of such incidents, so that we can share information with our Member States
and detect any patterns that may be emerging. Let me stress that, with the exception of one or two well-publicized
cases, especially in Germany, where the quality of the materials seized was high but the quantities were still
very modest, there is, in my view, no cause at present for widespread alarm: some smoke, yes; fire, no - or at
least not yet. But there is certainly no room for complacency in this field.
Conclusion
Permit me now to sum up.
The IAEA spans a full spectrum of nuclear-related activities. Those that usually come to public attention are those
relating to nuclear safety and to our role in attempting to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. These areas are
of central importance, and have contributed to the relatively strong support the IAEA enjoys from its Member States
of all sizes, at a time when much of the UN system is under attack and has to retrench financially and in staff
numbers. However, there is an important balance to be preserved between these functions and the services the Agency
provides to its developing Member States who look to the IAEA to provide assistance in raising their level of technical
sophistication and thereby improving the quality of life for their populations. Within the constraints I have described,
we will continue as best we can to meet those desired objectives.
Thank you.
© 1998-2000 El Organismo para la Proscripción de Armas Nucleares
en la América Latina y el Caribe (OPANAL) . Todos los derechos reservados.
The Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL). All rights reserved.