Zum Risiko der Weiterverbreitung von Kernwaffen durch den Verkauf der URENCO liegt hier eine kritische Stellungnahme


Mark Hibbs, Christhian Rengifo,
Would Urenco's Sale Pose a Proliferation Risk?
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Oct. 21, 2013

Hibbs is a Berlin-based senior associate in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. Before joining Carnegie, for over 20 years he was an editor and correspondent for nuclear energy publications, including Nucleonics Week and NuclearFuel, published by the Platts division of the McGraw-Hill Companies. ... Since 2003, he has made many detailed findings about clandestine procurement in Europe related to gas centrifuge uranium-enrichment programs in Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Pakistan.
weiterlesen


Zusammenfassung
Shares of Urenco, a pioneering developer of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, may soon change hands, but a sale of the company is unlikely to increase the risk of proliferation.

Diese Aussage belegt der Artikel aber nur, wenn die in ihm gemachten politischen und technischen Annahmen zutreffen. Wie verlässlich die sind, kann nach meiner Ansicht nur unzureichend beurteilt werden. Wohl aus diesem Grund verwendet Hibbs die Begriffe wie "unlikely" und "steps to better protect". Beispiele in den folgenden Auszügen.


Auszüge
Urenco, one of the world's leading uranium enrichment companies, was established by the Treaty of Almelo over four decades ago. The treaty's three contracting parties - Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom- have been responsible for protecting the firm's highly sensitive centrifuge enrichment technology.
That task is an important one. Urenco has pioneered in the development of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Those centrifuges can be used to make fuel for reactors that generate electricity. But they can also be used to produce uranium for nuclear weapons. In the 1970s and 1980s, the technology was stolen by agents of Pakistan and Iraq. ...

[mehr dazu: D. Albright, "Peddling Peril"]


... and put to use in clandestine nuclear-weapons-development programs in these countries and elsewhere. Since then, the Almelo governments have taken steps to better protect the company's classified know-how.


... All three Almelo Treaty governments have conditioned their approval of any new shareholder arrangements upon confidence that standards for nonproliferation and data security will be upheld. But the Netherlands, in May 2013, also attached conditions to the share sale that appear to reflect concerns that the transfer of shares to new owners outside the Almelo countries poses some residual risk.

In particular, The Hague wants to reserve for the Almelo governments certain rights that would override the prerogatives of shareholders. These would include


Since May, officials representing other shareholders in the UK and Germany, as well as parties interested in buying the shares, have informed their Dutch counterparts that should The Hague insist on reserving these rights for the Almelo Treaty parties, a sale of the shares will be unpalatable to prospective new owners. Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK are now negotiating a mutually acceptable understanding concerning the proposed share sale aimed to protect the ETC's [Enrichment Technology Company's] sensitive information while respecting Urenco shareholders' commercial freedom. An agreement may be reached in November [2013].


... The ETC owns and controls all the classified and proprietary know-how related to gas centrifuge enrichment plant design, development, and manufacture that Urenco uses. Until 2006, Urenco was the sole owner of this technology. In 2005, the three Urenco governments and France signed the Treaty of Cardiff, which provides for both Urenco's and Areva's 50 percent ownership in the ETC and their use of ETC know-how at their uranium enrichment plants. The uranium enrichment know-how that Urenco developed for over three decades was transferred to the ETC, and both Urenco and Areva were licensed to use the technology to sell enrichment services to the world market.

AVOIDING FUTURE SECURITY THREATS
Two security threats might emerge related to possible new Urenco ownership, namely [1.] in terms of shareholder access to ETC information and [2.] the risk associated with construction of an enrichment facility in a new country.


  1. New private sector shareholders from outside the Almelo countries could pressure the Joint Committee to weaken oversight for certain operations. Nevertheless, concerning information protection, at least since the mid-1990s, all Almelo parties have shared a common data protection system supported by national counterintelligence and law enforcement agencies. Under that arrangement, private sector shareholders in Germany have not challenged the Almelo governments' authority in protecting the ETC's information, and this should not change with new shareholders.
    Indeed, because the Cardiff Treaty assigns the Quadripartite Committee -in which shareholders do not participate- the responsibility for protecting the ETC's uranium enrichment technology, it is unlikely that new shareholders from outside the Almelo area will influence decisionmaking about information access. Additionally, the historical record since 1971 suggests that it would be extremely difficult for the Cardiff and Almelo Treaties to be amended to weaken the mandate or authority of the Joint Committee and the Quadripartite Committee -especially for the purpose of favoring the interest of an external shareholder.
  2. It is also unlikely that a new shareholder would influence decisionmaking in its favor to ensure the construction of a new enrichment plant on its territory. The reason is that all three Almelo governments would have to agree to such a decision.
    There have been occasions when one or more of the Almelo Treaty parties - for security, diplomatic, or other noncommercial reasons - have expressed concern about Urenco entering into business relationships with new prospective foreign partners. It is not a coincidence that the Netherlands has expressed concern that a sale of Urenco shares to non-European parties might be risky. The Netherlands is deeply aware that as a result of the theft of its centrifuge know-how by A. Q. Khan in the 1970s, this technology was used for secret nuclear programs in Pakistan, Libya, and Iran

[Einzelheiten über die unglaublichen Nachlässigkeiten auf Seiten der Almelo Treaty parties, die das ermöglichten, in Peddling Peril.]


Read more at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/10/21/would-urenco-s-sale-pose-proliferation-risk/gqto

Die Gefahr der Proliferation von Anreicherungstechnologie ist durch die von Gernot Zippe erfundene und bei der URENCO verwendete Ultrazentrifuge erheblich gesteigert worden:


Slender and Elegant, it Fuels the Bomb, New York Times, March 23, 2004
"It's small and you can procure the needed items in secret without being detected" [http://acamedia.info/politics/hmi.htm#costs], said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control group in Washington. "You end up with a small plant that's very hard to find." The world may be in for an unsettling time if the future of the Zippe centrifuge is as surprising as its past.

Der Iran verwendet den Zippe-Ultrazentrifugentyp.


Deutschland war übrigens in der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts weltweit das Zentrum des Vertriebs von Anreicherungstechnologie, in Verletzung des Nuklearen Nichtweiterverbreitungsvertrags (NPT).

mehr unter: http://acamedia.info/politics/hmi.htm


Version: 13.6.2015

Adresse dieser Seite

Home

Joachim Gruber