Marko Beljac has set it our clearly - the Howard government does not care about nuclear weapons proliferation, nor about any other conceivable restraint on Australia flogging off its uranium, and slavishly following the Bush line - no matter what.

Is there something else happening here? Is it the success of renewable energy technologies, winning investors all over the world? Is it the awful realisation that the government's corporate backers might lose out, if they don't sell the stuff off quickly - before the whole nuclear energy farce collapses?

With the uranium to India deal coming on, John Howard might live to be famous as Yellowcake John - in the same way that Menzies, promoting sales of iron to Japan on the eve of World War 2, has become known as Pig Iron Bob.
No wonder the crowrds will be out, protesting, on Sunday August 5th, the eve of Hiroshima Day.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

India has had a nuclear industry for over fifty years. We were exchanging technology with the Indians back in 1968 when I was involved with the industry. I wonder how you think it will be impeded if Australia refuses to sell it yellowcake.

"Marko Beljac has set it our clearly"...Yeah, a most astute observation if I may say so myself!!

Why wouldn’t we sell uranium to India for their power needs. The IAEA are going to monitor India’s civilian nuclear program to make sure Australian uranium is not diverted to the military. Whilst this leaves India’s own uranium supplies for weapons programs if India had to choose between their defence program and electricity, they’d choose weapons. Instead, they would just build more coal powered generators contributing significantly to current CO2 emissions. There are no current base-load generation options available that are affordable for a country like India.

India has a solid history in not onselling their nuclear technology. The real farce, I would suggest, is that most opponents of this deal just plain HATE nuclear energy, anywhere. It’s carnal sin to the priests and priestesses of the high church of the environment. Christina I wish you and your half dozen protesters warm weather. That way you might get the ratbag element who turn up to protests for lack of something better to do. You might also get the pseudo intellectuals of the anti capitalism movement who aren’t quite sure what they want, but are crystal clear on how much they hate that globalisation thingy.

How many investors an unproven technology has is totally irrelevant. Until there are working base load generators which are even remotely price competitive no third world country is going to buy them, nor should they have to. Nuclear power is the bridge we need in order to lower greenhouses gases until better technologies become available.

Christina said “With the uranium to India deal coming on, John Howard might live to be famous as Yellowcake John - in the same way that Menzies, promoting sales of iron to Japan on the eve of World War 2, has become known as Pig Iron Bob.”

And the greenies who are trying to shut down all of our power supplies MIGHT be responsible for pushing the world into global recession, destroying the livelihoods and savings of billions.

For sure, we aren’t going to be at war with India any time soon

> Should this come to pass, then like the US, this will be an express
> violation of our obligations under the NPT. Article III states that
> no state may export “source or special fissionable material”,
> including uranium, to a non nuclear weapon state that does not
> accept what are called “full scope safeguards”.

If you can find the words "full scope" in the NPT treaty text, I'll send you a case of whiskey.

India already has safeguard agreements under Article III with the IAEA and IAEA chief ElBaradei fully supports the US-India deal.

Ashley J. Tellis, special assistant o Under-Secretary NIcholas Burns, was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the 123 agreement.

He wrote an interesting article that you may be interested in.

Atoms for War? US-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India's Nuclear Arsenal

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/atomsforwarfinal4.pdf

Among the most serious criticisms leveled at the U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation initiative agreed to by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is that it would enable India to rapidly expand its nuclear arsenal. This criticism rests upon two crucial assumptions:

* that New Delhi in fact seeks the largest nuclear weapons inventory its capacity and resources permit; and,
* the Indian desire for a larger nuclear arsenal has been stymied thus far by a shortage of natural uranium.

Atoms for War? US-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India's Nuclear Arsenal by Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggests both these assumptions are deeply flawed. The study concludes that:

* India is currently separating far less weapons grade plutonium annually than it has the capability to produce. The evidence, which suggests that the Government of India is in no hurry to build the biggest nuclear stockpile it could construct based on material factors alone, undermines the assumption that India wishes to build the biggest nuclear arsenal it possibly can;

# Further, India's capacity to produce a huge nuclear arsenal is not affected by prospective U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation. The research in this report concludes that: India already has the indigenous reserves of natural uranium necessary to undergird the largest possible nuclear arsenal it may desire and, consequently, the U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation initiative will not materially contribute towards New Delhi's strategic capacities in any consequential way either directly or by freeing up its internal resources; that the current shortage of natural uranium in India caused by constrictions in its mining and milling capacity is a transient problem that is in the process of being redressed. The U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement proposed by President Bush does not in any way affect the Government of India's ability to upgrade its uranium mines and milling facilities—as it is currently doing. As such, the short-term shortage does not offer a viable basis either for Congress to extort any concessions from India in regards to its weapons program or for supporting the petty canard that imported natural uranium will lead to a substantial increase in the size of India's nuclear weapons program.

Article III states of non nuclear weapon states that, “The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere” in other words precisely what are called “full scope safeguards”. Frum wants to give the impression that that is not the case but notice that it is.

I am sure that Tellis, who you state was “a member of the US delegation that negotiated the 123 agreement”, should tell us how wonderful the agreement is and details are slowly starting to emerge demonstrating that Tellis has helped to water down the Hyde Act let alone previously long standing US nuclear non proliferation policy. See http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1592/more-on-the-india-123

Just simple cool headed rationality would dictate that firm conclusions cannot be reached from so suspect a source something which Frum may seek to dismiss as being a “petty canard.”

Frum further skirts the issue that this deal sets a precedent for “legitimate” proliferation by de facto recognizing India as a nuclear weapon state.

Be that as it may his further analysis is faulty. He states that India has enough uranium at home for a nuclear weapons programme. But India does not have enough uranium for both a weapons programme in the context of a regional arms race and an expanded civil programme. Any conclusion to the contrary based on what India is currently, i.e. pre expansion, doing is not only suspect as to source but flawed logically, as is obvious

This is especially the case when Frum gives us the following citation of Tellis: “India already has the indigenous reserves of natural uranium necessary to undergird the largest possible nuclear arsenal it may desire” so presumably India would have enough uranium for the “largest possible” arsenal that “it may desire” even in the absence of a trade deal and an expanded civil nuclear programme?

If so, why come to Australia? Tellis has succeeded in negotiating a shonky deal and demonstrated his lack of skill as a propagandist but to be fair to him the shonky deal makes this difficult in principle.

Err...

http://www.nti.org/db/China/iaeasg.htm

"The NPT does not, however, obligate exporters to require recipients to adopt full-scope safeguards."

and....

Testimony of Dr Condeleeza Rice to the US Senate - written reply to questions regarding NPT article I and III commitments:

"The U.S. and Canada engaged in nuclear cooperation with India before and after the NPT entered into force. The supply of fuel under facility-specific (INFCIRC/66) safeguards agreements was understood to satisfy our obligations under the NPT. Even after India’s 1974 detonation, fuel was provided to India’s safeguarded Tarapur reactors by the United States, France, and Russia. Such fuel supply was understood to be consistent with the NPT. The Nuclear Suppliers Group did not make the political decision to adopt full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply until 1992, reflecting the fact that nuclear supply to a country without full-scope safeguards was not prohibited under the NPT."

"In essence, nuclear cooperation under safeguards does not fundamentally differ from other forms of energy cooperation (e.g., oil supply, clean coal technology, alternative fuels). All such energy assistance would arguably relieve India of its reliance on domestic uranium for energy production. Yet such energy assistance clearly could not be viewed as assisting India in the manufacture of nuclear weapons."

Ashley Tellis:

"India is widely acknowledged to possess reserves of 78,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU).. the total inventory of natural uranium required to sustain all the reactors associated with the current power program (both those operational and those under construction) and the weapons program over the entire notional lifetime of these plants runs into some 14,640-14,790 MTU"

"If the eight reactors that India has retained outside of safeguards were to allocate 1/4 of their cores for the production of weapons-grade materials—the most realistic possibility for the technical reasons discussed at length in the forthcoming report—the total amount of natural uranium required to run these facilities for the remaining duration of their notional lives would be somewhere between 19,965-29,124 MTU. If this total is added to the entire natural uranium fuel load required to run India’s two research reactors dedicated to the production of weapons-grade plutonium over their entire life cycle—some 938-1088 MTU—the total amount of natural uranium required by India’s dedicated weapons reactors and all its unsafeguarded PHWRs does not exceed 20,903-30,212 MTU over the remaining lifetime of these facilities. Operating India’s eight unsafeguarded PHWRs in this way would bequeath New Delhi with some 12,135-13,370 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to produce between 2,023-2,228 nuclear weapons over and above those already existing in the Indian arsenal."

The text of the US-India 123 agreement on Nuclear Cooperation has been released

http://www.hindu.com/nic/123agreement.pdf

Err…

Let us cite the actual treaty text rather than a secondary source

Article III.2 states,

2. Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the safeguards required by this article.

Article III.1 states,

The safeguards required by this article shall be applied to all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.

QED

Condelezza Rice stated,

"there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq"

Citing state officials in support of state policy (in this case Rice and Tellis) demonstrates precisely nothing.

"Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty"

i.e. a NNWS as defined under the NPT is obligated to accept safeguards at all facilities.

A NWS is not, nor is a non signatory state.

The IAEA and the states that actually export nuclear material have a quite different interpretation of article III as regards non-NPT members or NWS members from what you suggest.

Which is why the NSG was forced to amend its rules to require full scope safeguards for non signatories to the NPT.

If article III required full scope safeguards for non NPT members then there would have been no need for new NSG rules on this.

> Condelezza Rice stated,

And she probably eats Iraqi babies for her supper too.

You've still not been able to respond to the substance of her Senate reply... her views on Iraq or Albania are just a distraction...

(a) Supply of nuclear fuel to India does not violate article I of the NPT since all such fuel is under IAEA safeguards and used for civilian electrical power. The argument that this will free up Indian resources for bomb making is not only inaccurate (see Tellis) but implies that selling solar or wind power equipment to India also violates the NPT since that also frees up generating capacity.

(b) Supply of fuel does not violate article III of the NPT because India is not a "state party" to the NPT. It never signed the treaty. Only non-nuclear-weapon state parties to the NPT are obligated to accept safeguards at all their facilities. Nuclear weapon states are not obliged to accept safeguards at all. Non state parties are obliged to accept safeguards at the particular facility being supplied.

India has the Uranium resources for both a small civil power industry and weapons. It does not have the Uranium required for a massive nuclear power generating sector whether or not it builds weapons.

Indian electrical generating capacity is going to increase irregardless.. it will burn millions of tons of imported coal, its own massive coal reserves (high sulphur) or a few thousand tons of imported Uranium.

Which option has the lowest CO2 emissions ?

You seem to fail to appreciate a simple point. What the above states is that states party to the NPT can export nuke materials to NNWS that accept the safeguards mandated by the Article. India is a nuclear weapon state outside of the NPT. So, it would be entirely consistent then for you for Australia to export nuke materials to India because of a tendentious semantic point that non nuclear weapon state applies only to states party to the treaty. But the treaty actually specifies what are the "nuclear weapon states" so any state that is not a nuclear weapon state, regardless of adherence, is a non nuclear weapon state. Nobody can act to recognise any state other than the actual mandated NWS as NWS as this deal precisely does.

Exporting materials to a nuclear weapon state outside of the NPT regime is not something an NPT state can do to stay NPT complaint. If so, why all the fuss about changing provisions of the regime?

In so far as "interpretation" of the NPT is concerned I notice that the Reliable Replacement Warhead according to Madame Rice is Article VI complaint which of course it is not. But the actions of which country saw a shift in the trigger list from Zangger to NSG exactly?

Err...
India.

CO2 etc is another issue entirely. The best solution for CO2 is a global regime to reduce CO2 emissions and shift toward alternative sources of energy...it is not necessary to destroy the NPT regime, vital for security and survival, to reduce CO2 as you would have it.

In so far as Rice and Tellis are concerned I have better things to do than spend my time on detailed replies for a cheerleader who, in citing state officials, shows nothing more than a propensity to google and cut and paste...think for yourself mate.

In so far as "freeing up" goes we have this on India's fast breeder reactor programme from the Arms Control Association, like people that think rather than cheer lead, http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2007/20070803_IndiaUS.asp

Article 6 of the agreement also states that: "Any special fissionable material that may be separated may only be utilized in national facilities under IAEA safeguards." However, India has thus far refused to agree to place any part of its breeder reactor program -- the ostensible user of such reprocessed material -- under international safeguards. The Congress should demand a Presidential assurance that any plutonium or uranium recovered from reprocessed U.S.-origin fuel be subject to IAEA safeguards in perpetuity, including any such material used in or produced through the use of such material in India’s breeder reactors.

Why don't you two just swap email addresses and carry on this discussion in private

Markob, why don't you just own up to the fact that you don't like nuclear power. Then we could get over this farce about the NPT, which is a red herring.

India has a solid history in not proliferating its nuclear technology, which is more than can be said for a number of other nuclear states, including France.

Supplying India's energy needs will positively affect hundreds of millions of poor people in India.

> If so, why all the fuss about changing provisions of the regime?

Notice that the fuss is about the NSG meeting (agreeing on a waiver to its rules) NOT an NPT review conference... the only regime changing here is an informal arrangement rather than an international treaty..
Not one party to the NPT has claimed that it is being violated by the US-India deal... not a single country...

> think for yourself mate

Perhaps you need to google a little, and educate yourself, before you 'think' up any more of these bizarre ideas. Just wishing a treaty said something doesn't make it so. You can't think away 3 decades of precedence. You can't think up words on a 30 year old document...

> India has thus far refused to agree to place any part of its
> breeder reactor program

It now appears that two fast breeders will be placed in the civilian sector...
From a report in the Indian press yesterday...

"Apart from the 500-MWe prototype, the IGCAR was also establishing four other fast breeder reactors.
While two of them would be located at Kalpakkam.."

The decision to site two fast breeders away from the Kalpakkam or BARC "islands" (no IAEA allowed) suggests strongly that these two will be safeguarded and linked to the safeguarded Plutonium reprocessing plant to be constructed

Daryl Kimball is just recycling the same tired, irrelevant arguments he has made before.

He deliberately confuses a civilian nuclear energy agreement with arms control. The US-India deal is not designed to have either a positive or a negative effect on the Indian nuclear weapons program.

Does he honestly expect the IAEA to have a safeguards agreement with India treating it as a NNWS? One with pursuit clauses allowing entry into complexes where nuclear arms are designed and fabricated? IAEA inspection teams include personnel from many nations. It is in nobody's interests for, say, Brazilian or Korean inspectors to have opportunities to obtain thermonuclear warhead design information. Leakage of weapons information from the IAEA archives has done enough damage. India will not allow the IAEA into facilities (like BARC) where it simply has no business.

Does he think India will accept perpetual safeguards on a reactor if it denied fuel for it? India wants perpetual safeguards for perpetual supplies. The NWS have the option of removing any facility from IAEA purview. As a state with nuclear weapons, is it surprising that India
demands similar rights in the event of fuel cutoff?

And the same deceitful demands for India to cap fissile material production. The US, UK, France and Russia have only ceased fissile material production because they have enough material for their weapons complexes after decades of production. They're not doing anyone a favor here. They're not doing it for world peace. Their fissile stockpiles are simply in surplus.
India, like China, will cap fissile stocks when it judges it has produced enough material for its needs. Just as the US has done.

Well, I see that Johnno is working himself up into a lather posting at 9.30pm and then at 1.30am…Ok, I agree with a previous post and call time out but I must insist on the wording of the NPT treaty text as cited above and note that India is not and cannot be NWS under the NPT and should not be treated as such. Article 3 attributes good behaviour for an exporting state to export to states that accept the safeguards required by the article… An international regime includes rules and norms, formal and otherwise. A regime includes but is not limited to a treaty. This deal is outside the NPT regime as currently formulated and even as you also formulate it, conceding that NSG rules require full scope safeguards. The idea is to limit nuclear weapon states to the declared states and then for these states to work for getting rid of their nukes…not in engaging in nuclear trade with nuclear weapon states outside of the treaty…India’s record on proliferation (in response to another poster) is akin to North Korea’s, i.e. shocking…getting the bomb outside of the NPT framework, (although NK withdrew from the NPT, India was never in) an act for which we almost went to war in the 1990s in regards to NK. Pakistan’s record is bad but Pak is in the game ‘cause of India. In 1974 India walked through its obligations to conduct a nuclear explosion. Frum’s comments on the fast breeder are just what Frum calls them “suggestions”…suggestions just doesn’t cut it. The 1.30 am post just only re-enforces my point about how this treats India as a nuclear weapon state. If this was the Cold War and the USSR pulled a stunt like this then condemnation from Rice et al would be loud and clear. Kimball is not alone...even Ashton Carter, a former US nuclear war planner, has spoken against the deal.

> I see that Johnno is working himself up into a lather posting at 9.30pm and then at 1.30am

I see that elementary geography needs to be added to your remedial education list ... let me give you a hint ... the earth is round .... local time is not the same everywhere ... time zones etc...

Work on the geography after your english comprehension, english composition (argumentative essays and avoiding juvenile ad hominem arguments), basic nuclear physics, history, and geopolitics...

Don't worry.. they'll give you that PhD eventually...

I'm off to Vanuatu... some folk have been praying for cargo..