Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

In Kazakstan this week, the international atomic energy agency is opening a new facility that will serve as a bank for low enriched uranium.    This facility is known as the LEU fuel bank and its opening is the result of over a decade of work by my guest Senator Sam Nunn.    Now the idea behind the, bank which Senator Nunn explains in detail is basically this. countries that want to use civilian nuclear power must either build their own enrichment facilities, or must purchase enriched uranium on the open market. the concern with the former is that facilities that enrich uranium for civilian purposes could also be used to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. The bank is basically an insurance policy to dissuade countries from wanting to build their own enrichment facilities because if for some reason the market is disrupted and supplies cut off, the county can get their fuel from this bank, which stores enough fuel to power a mid sized city for three years.    Senator Nunn is a former US senator who is co-chair