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Canada built its nuclear industry to avoid foreign fuel. Its new SMR reactors will depend on it.

by relying on imported enriched uranium, Canada would give foreign governments the ability to disrupt its nuclear fuel supply during a political dispute.

Canada would need to enrich its own uranium to control the entire fuel chain, but such a facility would cost billions to build and require extensive security, regulation and international safeguards througout its life.

“It would be much more uneconomical for Canada to develop one just for this small modular reactor design.”

Ontario’s first small modular reactor will rely on enriched uranium from the U.S., France and Britain

Colin Butler · CBC News ·  Aug 02, 2026, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-nuclear-supply-chain-smr-darlington-uranium-enrichment-9.7289297

The first reactors in Canada’s planned nuclear expansion will depend on foreign suppliers — including the United States — to enrich and fabricate their fuel, even as Prime Minister Mark Carney argues Canadian sovereignty depends on the country’s ability to supply and control its own energy.

It marks a sharp departure from the Candu reactor system, which gave Canada — the world’s second-largest uranium producer — a largely domestic nuclear supply chain for more than half a century.

Ontario has begun building the first of four planned BWRX-300 small modular reactors, or SMRs, in Clarington, Ont., called the Darlington New Nuclear Project. The American-Japanese-designed light water reactor uses low-enriched uranium, unlike Canada’s Candus, which use fuel made domestically from natural uranium without enrichment.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the Crown corporation that operates provincially owned electrical utilities, expects the first BWRX-300 at Darlington to be connected to the grid by the end of 2030. The other three are planned for the mid-2030s.

Cameco, the Saskatoon-based uranium mining and nuclear fuel company, will mine uranium ore in Saskatchewan and convert it in Port Hope, Ont., before it is enriched in the United States. France’s Orano and Britain’s Urenco are also listed by OPG as a supplier of enriched uranium, and an American company will manufacture the finished fuel assemblies in the United States.

Against Candu’s founding logic

Experts say the shift reverses the founding logic in Canada’s nuclear program.

A 1993 Library of Parliament background paper said the reason Candu was created was “to design a reactor tailored to Canadian circumstances” that used natural uranium to avoid “the difficult and expensive process of enrichment or, alternatively, dependence on foreign sources of enriched uranium.”

By placing that step in foreign hands, experts say, the new reactors undermine claims of energy soverignty and expose Canada to long-term geopolitcal risk.

Mark Winfield, a professor at York University who studies sustainable energy, climate change and energy policy, said by relying on imported enriched uranium, Canada would give foreign governments the ability to disrupt its nuclear fuel supply during a political dispute.

“It turns the original rationale for the Candu program completely on its head,” he said. “The whole idea was, going back to the 1950s, that we would have an all-Canadian fuel supply chain that would not be the subject to those kinds of geopolitical risks.”

OPG said spreading the work among suppliers in the United States, Britain and Frnace creates a “robust and resilient supply chain,” but the company still leaves both enrichment and fabrication — the two steps Canada cannot perform for the BWRX-300 — in foreign hands.

Why Ontario went global

Speaking at a recent news conference in Nanticoke, Ont., provincial Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said the province chose a foreign reactor because no Canadian alternative was ready to generate electricity at the required scale.

“There is not a Canadian grid-scale, commercially viable small modular reactor technology to procure,” he said. “So we had to go global.”

He said Ontario chose the American-Japanese BWRX-300 because it was the most advanced option and offered the best chance to reduce the risks associated with building a first-of-its-kind reactor.

Canada does have a new domestic reactor under development, but it was not an alternative for Ontario’s SMR project. The Candu Monark is not an SMR and is currently under assessment by Canada’s nuclear regulator.

The decision to “go global,” as Lecce put it, leaves Ontario dependent on foreign enrichment, but Lecce said the province has reduced the risk by arranging access to suppliers in the United States, France and Britain.

SMRs would use ‘modest’ amount of fuel

Winfield said multiple enrichment suppliers reduce the risk of disruption, but do not eliminate it. Every enrichment facility is outside Canada, while the only company identified that would make the finished fuel assemblies is American.

“I think that’s still a risk. Particularly if the United States decides to use its supply of various uranium for geopolitical leverage, which is clearly not beyond the thinking of the Trump administration,” Winfield said.

Even with France and Britain as backup suppliers, Winfield said, it opens the door to “all kinds of vulnerabilities relative to an all-Canadian supply chain. You are at the mercy of whatever external geopolitical events may be occurring.”

The federal government says foreign enrichment doesn’t present a significant supply risk, especially in the short to medium-term.

In an email, Natural Resources Canada said the four planned Darlington SMRs will require “a very small amount” of enriched fuel, which is “modest” compared with the global market, but did not provide a quantity.

Why being first is ‘not a good thing’

While there are other SMRs active in China and Russia, the Darlington facility will be the first SMR in the G7.

“That’s not a good thing, in my opinion,” said M.V. Ramana, a University of British Columbia professor who studies nuclear energy and international security.

“Nuclear power is a very expensive way to generate electricity and the small modular reactor is even more expensive.”

Ramana said SMRs sacrifice the economies of scale available to larger reactors.

A 2014 study suggests they are more expensive per unit in generating capacity unless savings from shared infrastructure can offset the disadvantage, which is what OPG intends for its four-reactor Darlington site.

BWRX-300 designer GE Vernova says smaller reactors can overcome some of that cost disadvantage because they require less machinery than conventional reactors: water circulates through the reactor without powered pumps, while emergency cooling functions use gravity and natural circulation.

The company says this reduces the amount of equipment that must be manufactured, installed and maintained.

However, because Darlington is the design’s first deployment, those projected savings have not yet been demonstrated by a commercially operating unit.

Could Canada enrich its own uranium?

The only way for Canada to eliminate its reliance on foreign suppliers is by establishing its own uranium-enrichment industry.

Lecce said Ontario would be open to discussions, but he acknowledged the decision ultimately rests with the federal government.

Natural Resources Canada said Ottawa has made no decision on commercial enrichment but plans to create a “Nuclear Fuels Table” with the provinces and industry to examine future needs and opportunities.

Ontario is currently the only province committed to building SMRs, but Saskatchewan is advancing plans for the same BWRX-300 technology, while New Brunswick and Alberta are evaluating potential nuclear projects that could include SMRs.

Ramana said Canada would need to enrich its own uranium to control the entire fuel chain, but such a facility would cost billions to build and require extensive security, regulation and international safeguards througout its life.

“In the enrichment business, again, there are economies of scale,” he said. “It would be much more uneconomical for Canada to develop one just for this small modular reactor design.”

Ramana added that the new reactors also create another long-term liability. Canada’s current $26-billion nuclear waste plan was calculated around fuel from the existing Candu reactor fleet.

New reactors could change both the volume and type of spent fuel requiring disposal, but Ramana noted there has been no cost estimate from Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization for adding the spent fuel from four BWRX-300s.

August 5, 2026 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Uranium | Leave a comment

Kremlin Still Key for US Atomic Power Despite Looming Import Ban


The vulnerability is growing more urgent as Washington promotes a nuclear
revival driven by power demand from data centers and electrification. The

US nuclear industry remains heavily dependent on Moscow for the enriched
uranium that fuels reactors generating about a fifth of the nation’s
electricity, highlighting the challenge of meeting a 2028 deadline to end
Russian purchases.

US reactor operators bought about 3.28 million
separative work units, or SWUs, of Russian enrichment services in 2025,
equal to almost 26% of their total purchases, according to data published
Wednesday in the Energy Information Administration’s latest uranium
marketing report. That compares with 17% a decade earlier.

 Bloomberg 30th July 2026,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-30/kremlin-still-key-for-us-atomic-power-despite-looming-import-ban

August 4, 2026 Posted by | Russia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Canada remains anti-nuke, but its potential path to the bomb is getting shorter.

This country has all the elements needed for a clandestine nuclear weapons program — if it so desired


Evan Dyer · CBC News · Jul 26, 2026, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-remains-antinuke-road-to-bomb-getting-shorter-9.7283194

For decades, Canada’s official policy on nuclear weapons has been that they shouldn’t exist, and there is no sign that principle is about to be abandoned.

But for reasons of history and geography, Canada is also one of the world’s non-nuclear countries with the easiest technical path to a nuclear weapon. And because of the particular design of its CANDU reactors, it would also be one of the countries best-positioned to produce weapons-grade fissile material without tripping international alerts — although such a move would carry huge geopolitical risks.

Technological changes that are expected in the coming years will likely make Canada even more of a threshold nuclear arms power than it is today, whether it chooses to cross that threshold or not.

“The only thing that inhibits Canada is the will to do it, the political decision to do it,” said nuclear weapons expert Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland, who served as head of national security and international affairs in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

He’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control, and the originator of the “Fetter Model,” the standard technique used in arms control verification for detecting the presence of nuclear warheads through radiography.

“Canada was a major participant in the Manhattan Project, as was the U.K.,” Fetter told CBC News. “Immediately after the [Second World War], we froze you out and said, ‘No co-operation.’ So Canada decided — as did the U.K. — to develop its own completely indigenous program.”

The heavy water route

The U.K., of course, went on to become a nuclear arms power, while Canada did not.

Canada designed the CANDU heavy water reactors that use unenriched, natural uranium containing only about 0.7 per cent of the U-235 isotope needed to make nuclear weapons. Most of the world’s 440-odd nuclear reactors are light water units that require uranium enriched to about four per cent U-235 content.

For this reason, and despite being the world’s second-biggest producer of uranium, Canada has never enriched domestically.

However, the CANDU is anything but a proliferation-proof technology, because it is not only the best kind of reactor for producing the plutonium-239 isotope used in bombs, but also for concealing its production.

“You do produce plutonium in a light water reactor,” said Fetter. “But that plutonium is contained in highly radioactive spent fuel and it’s not really high-quality.”

Light water reactors work by loading enriched uranium, sealing the reactor core and then running it for 18-24 months before shutting down, reopening the core and replacing fuel. This makes it relatively easy to keep track of how much fuel is going in, and what is happening to the spent fuel that comes out. It’s impossible to secretly swap fuel rods while the reactor is generating power.

The Canadian heavy water reactor doesn’t work that way.

Harder to monitor

“All uranium-fuelled reactors produce plutonium. The issue with the CANDU is that it has online refuelling,” explained Ed Lyman, director of nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. “You’re refuelling continuously, which makes it harder for the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency].”

Canada, which produces all of its own uranium, would be in a strong position to divert fissionable material undetected if so inclined, say the experts.

The plutonium produced in a heavy water reactor is also much easier to turn into a nuclear weapon, said Fetter.

“Of the countries that have made nuclear weapons with plutonium, many of them have used a heavy water reactor,” he said.

That’s why India used a Canadian heavy water reactor to produce its first nuclear weapon in 1974, an all-plutonium implosion-type bomb. The “Smiling Buddha” test was the first to break the nuclear monopoly of the “Big Five” UN Security Council powers.

Fetter said the U.S. had heavy water reactors only for the purpose of producing plutonium and tritium. (Tritium, also produced in abundance by the CANDU reactor, is another critical component of a modern two-stage thermonuclear weapon that Canada has in abundance.)

Using riskier fuels

Canada is also branching out into a new kind of technology that will require enriched uranium: the small modular reactor (SMR). Some of the proposed SMRs would use uranium enriched to a level as high as 20 per cent, known as high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).

HALEU is already a proliferation concern in itself, said Lyman.

“Anything below 20 per cent is considered low-enriched uranium and has a much lower level of oversight. The IAEA considers it indirect-use material you can’t directly use in a bomb,” he explained. “But there’s evidence, both historical and technical, that that’s not true, and that the actual cutoff for weapon-usable uranium is below 20 per cent. Could be 15 per cent, could be 10 per cent.

“And so I worry about this push for advanced reactors, SMRs that use HALEU up near 20 per cent, like the ARC 100 in Canada, that the material itself is in the dangerous band. And if Canada were to pursue a whole fleet of SMRs using HALEU, and especially if they were to build their own enrichment plants to support that, that might give them a threshold capability for bombs, even if they never make highly enriched [over 20 per cent] uranium.”

ARC Canada points out that its proposed reactor in New Brunswick, which would become the only commercial fast-breeder reactor in the world outside Russia, mitigates against proliferation risks by having a long fuel cycle with a core that stays sealed for 20 years.

But there’s another factor: The arrival of SMRs that consume enriched uranium has got the government of Canada thinking about enrichment.

To enrich or not to enrich

“Any country which has a complete fuel cycle is a latent nuclear weapons country, in the sense that it is not far from making a nuclear weapon,” said former IAEA director and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei.

Scientists consulted by CBC News said Canada would probably have little economic motive to build its own enrichment facilities. Canada’s nuclear energy strategy foresees importation of enriched uranium from France and the U.S. in the immediate future, even though that often means buying back Canadian-mined uranium after other countries have added value.

But the strategy also notes that “geopolitical volatility has exposed fragility in nuclear fuel supply chains at every stage — mining, milling, refining, conversion, enrichment, and fabrication.”

Canada plans to double its exports of uranium in raw form, “but there is also a compelling case for expanding downstream capabilities selectively.”

Domestic enrichment might not save Canada money, but would increase its strategic autonomy.

“Canada will continue to monitor the energy security implications of these supply chains,” says the strategy. “The longer-term question of whether Canada should develop domestic enrichment capability remains under assessment.”

Enrichment could get easier

A handful of non-nuclear arms powers have developed enrichment facilities. They include Brazil, Japan, Argentina, Germany and the Netherlands, but only Brazil combines a modern centrifuge facility with a large domestic supply of uranium.

Japan could theoretically produce weapons-grade uranium, but its nuclear technology, like South Korea’s, is largely American, its nuclear program is subject to strict inspections, and it has no uranium mines of its own — in fact it buys much of its supply from Canada.

A Canadian company, Cameco, is currently exploring the next frontier of uranium enrichment. The SILEX method uses laser excitation to separate U-235 more quickly and efficiently than spinning it in a centrifuge.

Already, a centrifuge facility can fit in an area the size of a high school gym. SILEX, said Fetter, “potentially could be even smaller and use less energy than centrifuge enrichment, which would make it harder to detect a clandestine facility.”

The SILEX project has already received U.S. government funding and acquired land in western Kentucky for a plant expected to be operating by 2030.

Crossing the threshold

For all the Carney government’s talk of “a more dangerous and divided world,” there is still no public signal that Canada might abandon its long-held opposition to nuclear arms.

If the strategic situation were to change, Canada would have to decide whether to go the open route and formally depart the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), or pursue nuclear arms through a clandestine program as other countries have done with a mixed record of success.

Plasma physicist Tara Drozdenko worked on nuclear weapons issues under the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush. She represented the United States on NATO’s Senior Group on Proliferation, and headed the Country/Regime Sanctions Unit at the U.S. Department of Treasury, where she managed the government’s nuclear-related sanctions on countries such as Iran and North Korea. 

Today, she’s not sure Washington remains committed to preventing proliferation, or how it would react to a Canadian decision to leave the NPT.

“In a normal administration, there would be condemnation, there would be reproach, there would be a lot of diplomatic efforts,” she told CBC News. “I don’t know what would happen in this administration. Would there be threats? Would there be some people that are like, yeah, everybody should have nuclear weapons? I really can’t predict what this particular administration would do.”

Clandestine plants and secret programs

So far, all the countries that have developed nuclear weapons — Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan and North Korea — began their efforts in secret.

Drozdenko says Canada’s own nuclear industry, the design of its reactors and the fact that it has the world’s best uranium deposits would all give it a strong hand were it ever to pursue such a risky course.

“Canada is probably really well-positioned to do that, if Canada was determined,” said Drozdenko. “You have a lot of land that’s not heavily populated, and if you used technologies that didn’t have a lot of energy or thermal signature, I don’t think the U.S. has its intelligence assets pointed at Canada right now.”

At some point, such a program would inevitably become known.

“It would require withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty, which would be really impactful to the treaty worldwide, especially as a NATO country and up until now a pretty close ally of the U.S. I think that would be pretty catastrophic to that treaty,” Drozdenko said.

Fetter said Canada could probably easily assemble a simple “gun-type” nuclear weapon like the one used on Hiroshima, but would face scientific hurdles if it tried to build a modern thermonuclear weapon without conducting tests. North Korea required half a dozen tests to get there.

In the U.S., Russia and China, supercomputers today have replaced actual testing. Canada has the computing capacity but lacks the detailed data that nuclear arms powers have assembled on materials science, and the complicated timing and interactions inside a nuclear warhead — some of the most closely guarded secrets in the world.

But Fetter also said he didn’t expect North Korea to be able to put a modern, two-stage thermonuclear warhead on a ballistic missile and make it work.

“Canada has a lot of smart people,” he noted.

With Canada embarked on a new era of greater military spending, including the purchase of modern submarines and its first foray into the world of cruise missiles, it is clearly assembling elements that could bring it closer to “breakout” as a nuclear arms power, if it desired.

The question of how other countries would react is the unknowable factor, said Drozdenko.

“Does Canada want to be in the position of North Korea, the pariah state that’s making clandestine nuclear weapons?” she asked.

So far, the answer has always been no.

July 29, 2026 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Uranium | Leave a comment

US greenlights Saudi nuclear enrichment without safeguards: Report

MEE staff, 20 July 2026, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-greenlights-saudi-nuclear-enrichment-without-safeguards-report

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman previously said he would acquire a bomb if Iran did

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman previously said he would acquire a bomb if Iran did.

The Trump administration has greenlit Saudi Arabia’s nuclear enrichment project, but with no safeguards in place to prevent the development of a bomb, CNN reported on Friday. 

The draft deal, viewed by the news outlet, showed Washington’s support for Riyadh’s civilian nuclear programme is still awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature, despite US-Saudi negotiations concluding in October.

Unnamed officials cited in the story indicated that the documents, which include the mandatory “123 agreement” and safeguards protocols, have not yet been sent to Congress, potentially for fear of bipartisan pushback.

It is unclear how long the president will wait, given Congress is likely to switch hands to a Democratic majority after the November elections, stymying his policy agenda. 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his advisors have long pushed for a deal that would allow them to enrich uranium, which they say the kingdom holds vast reserves of.

“We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake’,” Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said last year, referring to a step in the process that comes after mining but before enrichment.

Nuclear umbrella

The Saudi push to be included under the US’s nuclear umbrella was a key issue during the Saudi crown prince’s visit to the White House in November last year. 

Days after Israel attacked Hamas negotiators in Qatar earlier in the year, Saudi Arabia signed a defence pact with Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed state in the Muslim world.

Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads. Saudi and Pakistani descriptions of the deal said it encompassed all military options.

The Americans’ nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia have been kept under tight wraps, but one former US intelligence official previously told Middle East Eye that the idea of extending protection to the kingdom could serve a purpose.

“It would pull them out of the Pakistanis’ nuclear umbrella and make the Saudis feel better than the Qataris,” he said at the time.

In February, the Trump administration notified Congress it is pursuing a civil nuclear pact with Riyadh that does not include non-proliferation safeguards it has traditionally imposed on countries to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.

The language in the document also leaves room for Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, as it stipulates “additional safeguards and verification measures to the most sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation” between the two countries, including enrichment and reprocessing, the report said. 

A nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that does not explicitly prohibit the kingdom’s potential to enrich uranium in the future would be much more transformative for the  region than a separate deal for F-35 warplanes that the Trump administration is pursuing. 

In nuclear agreements with foreign governments, for example, the UAE, the US made cooperation conditional on commitments that they will not enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

The UAE, Morocco and dozens of European and Asian countries have signed the so-called “123 Agreements” with the US.

US law generally requires a 123 Agreement to be in force before licensing significant exports of US-origin nuclear material or equipment to a foreign country.

In addition to a 123 Agreement, US lawmakers have insisted that the US require Saudi Arabia to submit to what is called the “Additional Protocol”, which allows the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) additional access to nuclear facilities, data, and undeclared sites.

The UAE, the only other Gulf state to have officially partnered with the US in nuclear energy, signed the Additional Protocol to its IAEA agreement in 2009.

Reuters reported, however, that the Trump administration sent a preliminary report to some heads of congressional committees in November, which it is required to send if it is not pursuing the Additional Protocol.

The Reuters report underscores how Trump is putting deal-making at the centre of his diplomacy, even if it means chafing at the traditional concerns of the US foreign policy establishment.

July 25, 2026 Posted by | Saudi Arabia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear deal that would permit uranium enrichment by Saudi Arabia in limbo awaiting Trump admin sign-off

18 July By Davis Winkie, Zachary Cohen, https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/18/politics/saudi-arabia-trump-nuclear-enrichment

The Trump administration has tentatively agreed to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium without enacting international safeguards intended to prevent nuclear weapons development, according to sources familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by CNN.

The draft nuclear accord that outlines US support for Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program is awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature despite US-Saudi negotiations concluding in October 2025.

Two sources familiar with the matter indicated that the ongoing war with Iran — which according to Trump was launched in part to prevent Tehran from using its enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons — has played a role in delaying Trump’s signature. Some on Capitol Hill also believe the Trump administration is delaying sign-off because it could face a bipartisan disapproval resolution blocking the deals from going into effect, said one of the sources.

Experts told CNN the deal could potentially provide Saudi Arabia with a path to nuclear weapons unless stringent safeguards are put in place. The country’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has previously threatened to build his own nuclear weapons should Iran, his country’s principal regional rival, acquire the bomb.

Four sources said the agreement, which includes a civil nuclear cooperation deal known as a 123 agreement and a mandatory nuclear safeguards agreement, still have not been sent to Congress for review, as federal law requires the White House to do once signed.

The White House did not answer questions regarding the agreements and instead referred CNN to an October 2025 statement from Energy Secretary Chris Wright announcing the end of negotiations.

“We’ve come together on a deal for civil nuclear cooperation,” Wright said at the time. “Together, with bilateral safeguard agreements, we want to grow our partnership, bring American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and keep a firm commitment to nonproliferation.”

The Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC did not respond to a request for comment.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

The IAEA Faces a New Nuclear Puzzle Inside Iran

By RFE/RL staff – Jun 26, 2026, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-IAEA-Faces-a-New-Nuclear-Puzzle-Inside-Iran.html

  • Experts say effective IAEA inspections require broad access to verify Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, enrichment activities, and nuclear infrastructure.
  • A key challenge will be locating Iran’s roughly 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and ensuring it is properly downblended and cannot be re-enriched.
  • Former officials argue that restoring the IAEA’s “continuity of knowledge” after recent military strikes and restricted access will be one of the agency’s toughest tasks.

Amid an ongoing row between Washington and Tehran over whether international monitors can verify Iranian compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation commitments, former officials have told RFE/RL that the scale, scope, and degree of access are crucial to the success of inspections.

Details on those have yet to be determined, though Raffael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the UN body “will be working on the modalities — dates, procedures, places — very soon.”

That doesn’t mean, according to experts, that the organization hasn’t already drawn up a wish list for any eventual inspections

They almost certainly have a plan for when they go back in, what the priorities are, where they would want to go first, second, third,” Laura Rockwood, a former IAEA negotiator on Iran, told RFE/RL.

“The key thing is to find out where in particular the enriched uranium is…. I’d be willing to bet you that they have in place a plan for the day they need to go back in,” added Rockwood, who took part in high-level negotiations on Iran during a 28-year career at the IAEA before retiring in 2013.

Downblending Uranium

While US President Donald Trump has said that Iran has agreed to the highest level of nuclear inspections and Iran says it has no plans to allow the inspections, point No. 8 of the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding (MOU) states the two sides have agreed on a “minimum methodology” that Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) will be “downblended on site under the supervision of the IAEA.”

But the details of this could also prove contentious.

“If IAEA inspectors were able to measure and characterize both the high and low enriched material before the downblending, then simple arithmetic gives a good sense of what the product is. They’d then want to measure to confirm and seal that product for future accountability,” Matthew Sharp, who served as director for Iran nuclear issues on the US National Security Council (NSC) from 2021-2022, told RFE/RL.

“If, on the other hand, Iran does the downblending itself and then provides the product to inspectors, it would be much more difficult to know how much HEU Iran started with, which could create uncertainties as to whether all of the 60 percent or other enriched material had been downblended or if some remained out of our awareness,” said Sharp, now a senior nuclear fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies.

Right now, the location of Iran’s roughly 450 kilograms of HEU is unclear. After the US and Israeli air strikes, it could be buried under rubble in a bunker beneath a mountain, or the Iranian authorities may have moved some or all of it elsewhere to hide it.

But if it can be successfully located and downblended, the next step is stopping Iran from re-enriching it again at a later date.

Monitoring Enrichment

The MOU says the two parties agreed “to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal.”

Experts told RFE/RL that verifying this must include a role for the IAEA.

“Any suspension on uranium enrichment is relatively meaningless if it cannot be verified and if the IAEA does not have the access to ensure that there are no covert nuclear activities related to enrichment going on elsewhere in the country,” said Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.

“The level of access, the provision of information to the International Atomic Energy Agency, how quickly Iran has to comply with IAEA requests for access — all of that is going to be crucial,” she told RFE/RL.

“Once the enrichment level is low, below 5 percent, it’s much safer to ship out that material. It could be stored under an international fuel bank in Kazakhstan,” Davenport added.

The idea of shipping the downblended uranium out of Iran is something US officials appear keen on. At a recent background call with reporters, one official said dilution within Iran was “the floor” but that “we will push for more than that.”

A senior US official said Washington would rely heavily on the UN nuclear watchdog and US technical teams for verification. “We’re not in the trusting business,” the official said.

The IAEA has previously verified Iran’s compliance with its commitments to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it ratified in 1970, and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Lessons From The Past

Experts say many lessons have been learned from these experiences. They point to the importance of the IAEA’s Model Additional Protocol, which provides additional tools for verification.

Rockwood, now a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, was the principal author of the protocol.

Under the additional protocol, instead of just routinely being limited to nuclear material and nuclear facilities, we have access to information and locations concerning the entire nuclear fuel cycle, including the production of centrifuges,” she said. “So, if you know roughly how many centrifuges they are capable of making, you want to know where they are, and we can ask for that kind of access with an additional protocol.”

Iran signed the Additional Protocol in 2003 but has not sent an official letter to the IAEA that would bring it into force.

Iran provisionally implemented its provisions between 2003 and 2006 and for a period under the JCPOA. However, noted Rockwood, “there were lots of indications of noncompliance by Iran” during this time.

This, she said, could be expected to continue — with added complications.

June 29, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Uranium | Leave a comment

URANIUM ISN’T ‘NUCLEAR’?

Nuclear madness sweeps Sweden

Beyond Nuclear, 24 June 26.

n keeping with the collective taking leave of all senses that seems to have gripped politicians everywhere when it comes to nuclear power, the Swedish parliament has decided that uranium mines need no longer be described as “a nuclear facility”.

This means the radioactivity they release and the waste they create— and mainly leave behind— can be treated like any other mineral. The rationale: “With uranium mines no longer regulated as nuclear facilities, uranium extraction will no longer require explicit municipal consent.”

Sweden had already lifted its uranium mining ban in January 2026. Plus, they also voted to “amend Sweden’s environmental code to enable the expansion of nuclear power in more places on the coast.” Climate change? Sea-level rise? Never heard of it!

June 28, 2026 Posted by | Sweden, Uranium | Leave a comment

Who Would Take Iran’s Uranium?

Oil Price, By RFE/RL staff – Jun 18, 2026,

  • Kazakhstan has indicated it is willing to help store Iran’s enriched uranium if a broader international agreement is reached.
  • Iran remains reluctant to surrender its uranium stockpile because it views the material as leverage in negotiations with Washington.
  • Any transfer would face significant technical, political, and domestic challenges, including security concerns and public opposition in Kazakhstan.

As negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program continue, the fate of Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium remains one of the most difficult issues to resolve.

Before US and Israeli air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated that Iran possessed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. While not weapons-grade, the material is significantly close to the 90 percent enrichment level generally associated with the production of nuclear weapons.

The question now confronting negotiators is what should happen to that stockpile as part of a broader agreement between Tehran and Washington. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan has been mentioned as a possible third-party custodian………………………………. https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Who-Would-Take-Irans-Uranium.html

June 22, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Kazakhstan, Uranium | Leave a comment

UK powers up Ukraine with £210 million nuclear fuel deal

 The deal, announced by
the Prime Minister at the G7, sees UK Export Finance (UKEF) guarantee a
loan enabling Urenco, a UK-headquartered uranium enrichment company, to
supply enriched uranium to Ukraine’s national nuclear power producer,
Energoatom, powering the country’s nuclear plants for the next two years.

 UK Export Finance 16th June 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-powers-up-ukraine-with-210-million-nuclear-fuel-deal-and-boosts-british-jobs

June 20, 2026 Posted by | UK, Ukraine, Uranium | Leave a comment

North Korea unveils a new plant to produce fuel for nuclear weapons

Daily Mail 4th June 2026, SEOUL, South Korea (AP) –

 North Korea on Thursday unveiled a new facility to produce nuclear bomb fuels, with leader Kim Jong Un announcing plans to bolster the country´s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.”

Some experts still question whether North Korea has functioning nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland. But the nuclear plant’s disclosure implies that Kim is eager to cement his country’s status as a nuclear power and has no intentions of placing his bomb program on a negotiating table.

After visiting the site on Wednesday, Kim said he and other top officials “confirmed the order of priority for implementing the ambitious future plan designed to beef up our state´s nuclear forces at an exponential rate,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

KCNA said the facility used “more sophisticated technology” but didn´t provide further details like its location. South Korea´s Joint Chiefs of Staff assessed the site as a uranium enrichment plant and said it was closely coordinating with the United States to monitor North Korean nuclear activities………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Experts say Kim wants an international recognition as a nuclear state so that he could demand the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions. They say Kim would ultimately push for arms reductions talks with the U.S. as a way to win concessions in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability……………………………………………………… https://www.dailymail.com/wires/ap/article-15872477/North-Korea-unveils-nuclear-plant.html

June 7, 2026 Posted by | North Korea, Uranium | Leave a comment

Canada’s nuclear ambitions need fuel security, not just new reactors.

Canada is expanding nuclear power but remains dependent on foreign enriched uranium for the next generation of reactors.

Policy Options, May 28, 2026, Alex MacDonald 

“……………………………………………………. In Canada, refurbishments of existing large-scale reactors are being completed. The first small modular reactor (SMR) in the G7 is scheduled to come online in 2030 in Ontario with three more planned. Alberta and Saskatchewan are considering adding nuclear power to their energy mix while advanced nuclear reactors are even being pitched to alleviate the persistent energy struggles in Northern Canada………………………………

The Canadian Nuclear Association predicts that Canada will adopt billions of dollars worth of new and advanced nuclear technologies – large light-water reactors, SMRs and micro modular reactors – all of which will be deployed in Canada for the first time.

These technologies have one thing in common. They require enriched uranium to operate. Their supply chains and operational needs are different and more risk-exposed than what Canada has historically operated in the nuclear field………………………….

It makes little sense for governments and ratepayers to underwrite the necessary large capital expenditures of these new reactors without maximizing certainty on operational costs and supply. It is like commissioning the building of a skyscraper without knowing the cost of the steel to build it………………………………………………………………………….. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/05/canada-nuclear-fuel-security-uranium-enrichment/

June 3, 2026 Posted by | Canada, Uranium | Leave a comment

The White House Is Fast-Tracking a Near Weapons-Grade Uranium to Power Next Gen SMR Nukes.

Bomb Grade Uranium For Sale

The hypocrisy is stunning. But the risks are worse because the danger posed by HALEU may be far worse than currently acknowledged.

April 22, 2026,  Peter McKillop, https://www.theenergymix.com/the-white-house-is-fast-tracking-a-near-weapons-grade-uranium-to-power-next-gen-smr-nukes/

Oh, the irony. As the United States Defense Department spends billions to stop Iran from using enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is fast-tracking a Bill Gates nuclear power project that could trigger a race to create a new generation of near bomb-grade uranium fuel.

Last month, as bombs rained down on Tehran, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) unanimously approved a construction permit for TerraPower’s sodium‑cooled Natrium reactor, a fast reactor that requires High‑Assay Low‑Enriched Uranium (HALEU), a fuel experts say is significantly easier to weaponize than standard reactor fuel.

HALEU is uranium enriched between 5% and 20% uranium-235, compared to the maximum 5% used in today’s conventional reactor fleet. That higher enrichment level allows advanced reactors to achieve smaller, more compact designs that generate more power per unit of volume, run on longer operating cycles, and produce less radioactive waste. But there is an unintended consequence. Once the uranium mix is 20% and above, it is reclassified as highly enriched uranium (HEU) and is internationally recognized as being directly usable in nuclear weapons.

Despite this proliferation threat, HALEU remains central to the Energy Department’s advanced nuclear push because without it, most next-generation reactors cannot run. The DOE has now selected 11 advanced reactor designs under its Reactor Pilot Program, many of them planning to run on HALEU.

Only, the U.S. has no HALEU, only Russia does. So TerraPower has turned to South Africa to build a new enrichment facility that aims to produce roughly 15 tonnes of HALEU by 2027, enough to fuel the Natrium demonstration plant’s first core and more. And here lies the problem. By embracing HALEU, the DOE is effectively jump‑starting an international HALEU market and expanding the global circulation of material that can shorten the path to a bomb. 

Nuclear safety expert Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists warns that this push “may greatly increase the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.”

Bomb Grade Uranium For Sale

The hypocrisy is stunning. But the risks are worse because the danger posed by HALEU may be far worse than currently acknowledged. In a letter in Science, Lyman and three leading nuclear researchers—Scott Kemp of MIT, Mark Deinert of the Colorado School of Mines, and Frank von Hippel of Princeton—argue that HALEU can, in some cases, be used to make nuclear weapons without any further enrichment at all. Promoter of SMR’s, they argue, have not considered the potential proliferation and terrorism risks that the wide adoption of this fuel creates.

Opening the Gates

This has not stopped Bill Gates. As founder and chair, he is the driving force behind TerraPower. In the past year, Gates has dramatically shifted away from solar power to double down so-called ‘”innovative” nuclear power schemes.

Gates is aggressively courting the Trump administration, including DOE Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, to help secure expedited NRC safety reviews to accelerate construction permits for the Wyoming Natrium site.

Why Bother?

At first glance, what Gates is championing does not seem totally unreasonable. With new power needs and climate deadlines looming, supporters argue that only reactors can provide round‑the‑clock, low‑carbon power without devouring land or depending on fickle weather. Small modular and “advanced” designs, they say, will be cheaper, quicker to build, and safer than the behemoths of the past, complementing wind and solar rather than competing with them. 

In this view, HALEU is not a bug but a feature: the key to compact, flexible reactors that can decarbonize heavy industry and data centres alike.

Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace

The problem is, we’ve seen this movie before, minus data centres and climate concerns. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration championed “Atoms for Peace” and actively helped Iran build a “peaceful” nuclear program—research reactors, fuel, training, the whole package—on the assumption that controlled access to advanced fuel cycles would lock in development and stability. 

Seven decades and one revolution later, the United States and Israel are bombing that same program. It is hard to imagine a clearer warning against casually globalizing any technology that nudges civilian infrastructure closer to bomb‑grade fuel.

Bros for Bombs

But that does not seem to concern key members of America’s billionaire class. Jeff Bezos, is also a fan of SMRs and has plowed more than $1 billion into nuclear ventures that stand to benefit directly from such policies, and that the company he founded is a leading champion of nuclear power for data centres.

In this week’s edition of Climate & Capital Weekly, CCM editor Barclay Palmer teams up with former nuclear industry heavyweight-turned-watchdog Arnie Gundersen look into the nuclear influence peddlers shaping U.S. nuclear policy.

Gates and Bezos both know the economics of nuclear power are so brutal that only a government can finance its development. The last two reactors completed in the U.S.—Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle plant in Georgia—came in at roughly $35 billion, nearly double their original budget, and were seven years behind schedule, helping drive Westinghouse into bankruptcy and nearly sinking the participating utility.

The billionaire bro partnership with Trump is a great example of how the administration operates. Today’s nuclear revival is a top‑down affair. Gates and Bezos have effectively captured the only institution large enough to bear the financial costs and political risks of nuclear construction: the federal government. 

The payoff they are chasing is to fast-track the terawatt‑hours needed to feed their AI‑driven data‑centre empires, even if it means risking nuclear Armageddon.

April 29, 2026 Posted by | Uranium | Leave a comment

Secrets and Shortcuts: The US Uranium Enrichment Rush

LYNDA WILLIAMS, 6 April 2026, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/06/secrets-and-shortcuts-the-us-uranium-enrichment-rush/

The United States keeps going to war over uranium enrichment. 
We started a war in Iraq over it after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” which later proved to be false. We bombed Iran’s enrichment facilities in June 2025, with Trump declaring he had “completely and totally obliterated” them. 
Eight months later, we started another war with Iran over enrichment, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found no evidence of a structured nuclear weapons program. Now, Trump is considering sending  special forces into Iran to physically seize the enriched uranium — except nobody knows exactly where it is.

Now the US is actively pursuing its own domestic uranium enrichment after decades of dependence on foreign suppliers, including Russia, which, after it invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration cut off. The US currently has only one operating commercial enrichment facility, which cannot begin to supply the “nuclear renaissance” the Trump administration is promoting. Five companies are simultaneously seeking NRC licenses, backed by $2.7 billion in DOE contracts, under a regulatory framework being dismantled in real time — gutting environmental review, eliminating radiation safety standards, and compressing public participation timelines to get them built fast.

The first to apply is Global Laser Enrichment LLC — a Delaware shell company majority-owned by Silex Systems Limited of Australia and Cameco Corporation of Canada — and their application is shrouded in secrecy and regulatory shortcuts. The license application looks like a redacted Epstein file: 274 pages of black bars.

Why the Big Secrecy?

The problem with enrichment is proliferation. Natural uranium consists of two isotopes — uranium-238 and uranium-235 (U-235), the fissile isotope you need for both nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs. In its natural state, uranium contains only 0.7% U-235, so it must be enriched artificially.

Nuclear fuel for a nuclear power plant needs uranium enriched to about 5% U-235. A nuclear bomb needs it at 90% or above. Same basic process, same basic equipment — just keep enriching. Iran had enriched to 60% according to the IAEA before the June 2025 strikes — well past reactor fuel and closing in on weapons grade. That’s proliferation. North Korea had a proliferation problem the Clinton administration was successfully negotiating — until Bush came in, put North Korea on the “axis of evil,” and within months they turned off their IAEA monitoring cameras and expelled inspectors, testing their first nuclear bomb four years later.

On March 27, 2026, the NRC published a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed $1.76 billion uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky — next to the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP), a Cold War uranium enrichment site that operated from 1952 to 2013 and left behind a Superfund cleanup still running today. The federal government sold GLE over 200,000 metric tons of publicly owned depleted uranium to process from the PGDP — but the price is secret.

The secrecy traces to a single act. In June 2001, the Secretary of Energy classified the SILEX laser enrichment technology under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The entire public record of that decision is five sentences in the Federal Register — no technical justification, no public comment period, no congressional notification, no appeal process. The Federation of American Scientists called it “constitutionally questionable.” It has never been legally challenged. The PLEF would be licensed to enrich to a maximum of 6% U-235 — reactor fuel grade. The irony is that independent peer-reviewed research suggests SILEX cannot be efficiently cascaded to weapons grade, making the classification that drives all this secrecy scientifically questionable as well.

What’s in the EIS?

GLE proposes to build a $1.76 billion laser enrichment facility on 322 acres of former public wildlife land — until eighteen months ago part of the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, managed for hunting, fishing, and horseback riding, and home to bald eagles, golden eagles, monarch butterflies, and eastern box turtles. The site contains 38 wetlands, 20 streams, and 6 ponds — all of which would be destroyed to build the facility. GLE proposes to discharge 60,000 gallons of wastewater per day, some of it radioactive, into Little Bayou Creek, which flows to the Ohio River — drinking water for five million people downstream. Fish consumption in Little Bayou Creek is already not supported due to PCB contamination from the adjacent Cold War plant.

The facility would take in depleted uranium hexafluoride — the tails left over from Cold War enrichment — re-enrich it, and produce more uranium hexafluoride waste. Over 40 years the PLEF would generate 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste with nowhere to go. The EIS waste table lists the largest waste stream — 18,161 tons per year — with three words in the disposal column: “subject to availability.” The EIS also declines to quantify what fraction of the DOE stockpile contains reprocessed uranium — known as RepU — material that passed through a reactor and carries transuranic contaminants, including neptunium-237 and plutonium, with half-lives of thousands to millions of years. RepU cannot go to a standard low-level waste site and may require disposal at WIPP in New Mexico, which was never designed for it. GLE’s website says the PLEF will “reduce the legacy environmental footprint” of the former Paducah plant. Re-enriching depleted uranium hexafluoride produces more uranium hexafluoride. The chemical form never changes, and the volume increases. That’s not cleanup. That’s more radioactive waste with nowhere to go.

What We Don’t Know: Safety

The comment period for the EIS closes May 11, but the government’s Safety Evaluation Report (SER) – which is normally completed alongside the EIS -won’t be completed until January 2027. GLE received special NRC permission to submit the environmental and safety portions of its application separately, meaning the public must comment on the facility’s EIS without ever seeing the safety analysis. The safety analysis submitted with the license application is classified. The emergency plan is withheld as a corporate trade secret on the grounds that releasing it would, in the sworn, notarized words of GLE’s licensing manager Tim Knowles, “reduce or foreclose the availability of profit opportunities.”  The Integrated Safety Analysis Summary — which NRC regulations require to be placed on the public docket — has been removed from the federal docket entirely. Not redacted. Removed. (NRC ADAMS accession ML25179A002 not publicly available)  In case of emergency, the EIS says the facility relies on local volunteer fire departments – departments with no legal right to read the emergency plan for the facility in their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Kentucky approved nearly $100 million in public incentives to bring this facility to Paducah — some of it under a nondisclosure agreement so complete that the McCracken County judge told public radio he legally cannot tell you how much his county committed or what the terms are. The undisclosed county portion alone is nearly twice McCracken County’s entire annual operating budget.

The Regulatory Shortcut

For the EIS, the NRC borrowed conclusions from NUREG-2249, a draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement written for nuclear reactors — not enrichment facilities — that was published in September 2024, never finalized, and never applied to any proceeding before this one. Using this unfinished reactor document, the NRC pre-answered 34 environmental questions for the PLEF, declaring them all SMALL without site-specific analysis — including water use in the region, sedimentation impacts on aquatic species, and contaminated stormwater from outdoor uranium cylinder storage pads.  SILEX laser enrichment appears nowhere in NUREG-2249. These 34 conclusions can still be challenged before May 11. Once NUREG-2249 is finalized, that window closes permanently.

What You Can Do

The most impactful comments challenge the application of NUREG-2249 — a draft reactor document — to pre-answer 34 environmental questions for a laser enrichment facility without legal authority; the waste disposal analysis for which no confirmed to put 290,574 metric tons of new radioactive waste; and the requirement to comment on facility safety before the Safety Evaluation Report exists.

Submit comments on the PLEF draft EIS by May 11, 2026 at: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NRC-2025-1007

Lynda Williams is a physicist and environmental activist living in Hawaii. She can be found at scientainment.com and on Bluesky @lyndalovon.bsky.social

April 10, 2026 Posted by | Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Protecting Our Wells: The Rural Costs of Uranium Exploration in Rural Nova Scotia – Alan Timberlake.

Those risks are not hypothetical. Dr. Bertell’s research showed that even low‑level internal exposure—from inhaled dust, dissolved uranium in drinking water, or radon gas—can cause cellular and genetic damage. She documented increased cancer rates, reproductive harm, immune system impacts, and long‑term generational effects in populations exposed to what regulators often describe as “safe” or “acceptable” doses.

April 4, 2026. Citizens Against Uranium Exploration and Mining in Nova Scotia, Alan Timberlake
Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia

Protecting Our Wells: The Rural Costs of Uranium Exploration in Rural Nova Scotia – Alan Timberlake
For rural Nova Scotians, clean well water isn’t a luxury—it’s our lifeline. It’s what we drink, cook with, bathe in, and give to our animals. That’s why the province’s decision on March 26, 2025 to repeal the long‑standing ban on uranium exploration has raised so many alarms in communities like ours. When your home depends on groundwater, any activity that disturbs uranium‑bearing rock is not an abstract policy issue. It’s personal.

At this time in Nova Scotia, it’s important to remember the work of Dr. Rosalie Bertell (1929–2012), one of the world’s leading experts on low‑level radiation. I first met Dr. Bertell in the early 1980s after helping facilitate her participation as an intervener at the British Columbia Royal Commission on Uranium Mining in Vancouver. Her testimony there helped shape BC’s decision to maintain its moratorium on uranium mining—a position the province still holds today. She was a meticulous epidemiologist and cancer researcher, and her warnings about internal radiation exposure remain deeply relevant to Nova Scotia’s current debate.

British Columbia’s stance today stands in sharp contrast to Nova Scotia’s recent repeal. BC continues to enforce a province‑wide moratorium on uranium exploration and mining through a “no‑registration reserve” that prohibits staking, exploration, or development of uranium or thorium. Even as the federal government promotes uranium as a critical mineral, BC has deliberately excluded it from its own critical minerals strategy. The province where Dr. Bertell’s evidence helped shape policy has stayed the course—while Nova Scotia has moved in the opposite direction.

Nova Scotians have not been silent about this shift. On October 3, 2025, a petition with 7,000 signatures was formally tabled in the Legislature calling for the ban to be reinstated. More petitions are still being circulated across the province. The speed and scale of this response show just how deeply people—especially rural residents—understand the risks.

Those risks are not hypothetical. Dr. Bertell’s research showed that even low‑level internal exposure—from inhaled dust, dissolved uranium in drinking water, or radon gas—can cause cellular and genetic damage. She documented increased cancer rates, reproductive harm, immune system impacts, and long‑term generational effects in populations exposed to what regulators often describe as “safe” or “acceptable” doses.

For rural Nova Scotia, the concern is straightforward: exploration drilling can mobilize uranium into groundwater. Our geology is fractured. Water moves unpredictably underground. A 2018 provincial review found that drilled wells in Nova Scotia have a significantly higher chance of uranium contamination than dug wells. When you rely on a well, there is no backup system. No municipal treatment plant. No alternative supply. Once a well is contaminated, the options are limited, expensive, and often ineffective.

The province insists that modern exploration is “low‑impact.” But rural residents know that the first impacts are often invisible. A slight shift in groundwater flow. A small increase in dissolved uranium. A rise in radon levels in a basement. These changes don’t announce themselves with fanfare—they show up in water tests, in health statistics, or in the lived experience of families who suddenly can’t drink from their own taps.

Despite the government’s enthusiasm, no companies submitted proposals during the initial call for exploration. Even the premier later admitted the push for uranium exploration appears to be “kind of toast right now.” But the repeal remains in place, and the regulatory door is open.

That’s why Dr. Bertell’s work matters so much today. She taught us that low‑level radiation is not benign, and that internal exposure—especially through water—carries risks that can unfold over decades. For rural communities, that means we need independent science, transparent monitoring, and a real voice in decisions that affect our wells.



April 9, 2026 Posted by | Canada, Uranium | 1 Comment

Does the Trump administration understand how ‘enriched’ uranium is made into weapons?

Harmeet Kaur, CNN, 2 April 2026

For the US to reach a deal with Iran or to end its war in the country, President Trump has said he wants Iran to surrender its “enriched” uranium.

“We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins last week.

The president has at times cited Iran’s “enriched” uranium stores as part of his ever-changing rationale for the war, and in recent days, he’s reportedly considered sending US troops in to seize them. But nuclear arms experts say the way Trump and his lead negotiator have talked about uranium enrichment raises doubts about how well they understand the technicalities.

For one, Trump keeps referring to “nuclear dust,” which is not a known term in the nuclear energy industry. And since the February 26 US-Iran nuclear talks, Steve Witkoff, a former real estate developer who has been leading US negotiations with Iran along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has made claims that experts say betray a similarly weak expertise………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Uranium that has been enriched above the natural 0.7% level of uranium-235 and up to a 20% concentration is considered low-enriched uranium, used for civilian purposes. Commercial reactors typically require uranium enriched to less than 5%, while research reactors used for testing or medicine generally require uranium enriched to up to 20%.

Uranium enriched beyond 20% is considered highly enriched uranium, and uranium enriched above 90% is considered weapons-grade.

The higher the enrichment level, the more quickly uranium can be enriched to weapons-grade, Diaz-Maurin says. Once uranium has been enriched to 20%, a vast majority of the work required to enrich it to weapons-grade levels has been completed. It becomes exponentially easier to enrich 20% uranium to 60%; enriching from 60% to 90% is even easier, he says.

The higher the enrichment level, the lower the minimum mass of enriched uranium required to produce a bomb, says Diaz-Maurin. For example, uranium that’s been enriched above 20% can technically be used to produce a crude weapon, but you would need about 400 kilograms of it, making it inefficient and impractical. When the enrichment level goes up to 60%, the critical mass drops down to about 42 kilograms. Uranium enriched to weapons-grade requires about 28 kilograms, which can fit into a missile warhead, he says.

Since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in his first term, Iran has been enriching its uranium closer and closer to weapons-grade, though it officially proclaimed a religious prohibition against building a nuclear weapon. Now, given that the US and Israel have attacked the country as negotiations were ongoing, Iran’s hardliners in parliament are calling on the regime to advance to full nuclear armament.

Western nations, as well as the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have long expressed concerns about Iran’s production and stockpiling of highly enriched uranium. On June 12 last year, the IAEA estimated that Iran’s stockpile included 440 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60%, Diaz-Maurin wrote in a recent analysis. The next day, Israel attacked Iran, killing prominent nuclear scientists and significantly damaging Iran’s main enrichment site.

Enrichment level is an important indicator of risk, but there are a host of other factors that should be considered in assessing how quickly Iran could produce weapons-grade enriched uranium, says Kelsey Davenport, director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association. Those other considerations include the amount of enriched uranium a country has, its capacity to enrich it and whether the uranium is being held in solid fuel rods or in gas form.

“Witkoff had a poor grasp of the details,” she says.

For example, Davenport says comments that Witkoff made in the aftermath of February 26 negotiations with Iran indicated some confusion between nuclear reactors, which use enriched uranium for power, and the centrifuge facilities where the enrichment process takes place. Witkoff seemed particularly concerned about a research reactor in Tehran that he claimed was being used to stockpile highly enriched uranium. Reports from the UN’s nuclear watchdog estimate that Iran had about 45 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium stored in fuel assemblies at the reactor, which Davenport says “is not even enough for one bomb.”

To be developed into a nuclear weapon, she says the uranium at the reactor would need to be converted back to gas form and then be further enriched to weapons-grade. Before Israel’s strike on Iran’s main conversion facility last June, that might not have been difficult. Now, the situation has changed. “Could Iran convert that material back to gas form? Yes,” she says. “Could they do it quickly and easily at this point? No.”

Davenport says Witkoff was also reportedly surprised by how much enriched uranium was in Iran’s stockpile, even though this information was well documented by international inspectors. “I think he was focused on the wrong details and did not have the nuclear expertise or the expert team available to him to assess how the Iranian proposal would have impacted risk overall,” Davenport says.

Iran also said that it made an offer to dilute its 60% enriched uranium to a lower percentage, which Diaz-Maurin calls “a sound one from a non-proliferation perspective.” But he says it doesn’t appear that US negotiators took the proposal seriously. “I suspect that they did not really understand what the meaning was,” he adds. “And here we are.”

Less than two days after Witkoff and Kushner met with Iran to discuss its nuclear program, the US and Israel attacked the country. Some experts suggest that the decision was informed, at least partially, by a shallow understanding of Iran’s nuclear program and positions.

“It certainly seems as though there was a gap, and that’s a huge problem on something like this, especially when it seems like potentially a military decision was made based on things that were happening in that room,” says Connor Murray, a research analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

A month on, the US is engaged in an intense war that experts argue could potentially have been avoided with another word: Diplomacy. US and Israeli strikes have indeed severely diminished Iran’s capacities to enrich uranium, Diaz-Maurin says. But he says Iran’s know-how and political will to build nuclear weapons probably won’t be destroyed so easily.

“​​You can’t really bomb away an idea, a program and knowledge. So there will always be a suspicion that Iran is doing something,” he says. “And one could argue that now more than ever, they have incentive to accelerate whatever program they have.” https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/01/us/word-of-week-enriched-cec

April 4, 2026 Posted by | politics, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

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