Voice in the Desert: The Radioactive Rebellion

October 24, 2007

The Radioactive Rebellion

ABC did a feature recently about Niger's uranium and the related shenannigans. They interviewed me for some background colour and also included readings from The Yellowcake Conspiracy. You can listen to the program in full or read the transcript by following the link below.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2007/2061062.htm

The program focussed on the security (or lack of it) of uranium mines and convoys. Here are some of the bits I found particularly interesting:

Igor Khripunov: Uranium coexists in many mines with copper, with platinum, and it's very hard to sort it out, which amount goes for uranium and which amount goes for platinum, copper, cobalt, you know. So it's a very complicated procedure of accounting, and it requires a sense of responsibility and a security culture. I strongly believe that we need to use this concept of security culture at uranium mines now.

Stan Correy: By security culture, Dr Khripunov means a commitment to the idea that uranium and everything else in the nuclear cycle, is very tightly controlled, wherever it is. That's not happening at the moment, and the International Atomic Energy Agency doesn't have much of a chance of making sure of it in the near future. It will require enormous international co-operation and a lot of money. There's a database which has a record of global trafficking incidents since the early 1990s. It records all trafficking in everything, from raw uranium ore to highly enriched uranium ready to be used in weapons. The database shows that about 20% of all trafficking involves uranium in quite low potency, as ore, yellowcake, or only low-enriched uranium.

Freidrich Steinhausler: It is not that difficult if you think of the remoteness of many of the uranium mines; if you think of the relatively difficult meteorological issue we have in measuring it, it's low activity, natural uranium, and it is technically not very difficult to blend it with other materials to camouflage it or to hide it from detection.

Stan Correy: For example, the crushed and milled ore can be mixed with sand and the load delivered as construction material. Yellowcake can be mixed with chemicals of the same colour as a disguise.

Freidrich Steinhausler: There are other ways where people have been very successful in falsifying the weight of trucks as they go into the facility, and then being able to transport material out with the false gross weight of the vehicle. So it has happened, and it's not difficult to envisage how it could happen in the future, unless we really review the accounting and control procedures we have currently in place.

Freidrich Steinhausler: The actual uranium exploration area traverses through these areas of unrest, and not only do you have the physical danger to the transport of the uranium ore, you have the physical threats to the officials who are supposed to be inspecting these areas. I can recall that the supervision of these areas out of the capital is very difficult. You're talking about 1,000 kilometre road leading through the desert, leading through these areas with political upheaval, and so government officials of course, are exposed to an added physical security risk on their lives if they go and inspect these areas.

Stan Correy: A month ago, The Economist magazine called what's happening in Niger: A radioactive rebellion, a combustible mix of nomads, uranium, oil and poverty. And it's definitely now a hot zone. US Special Forces troops are stationed in Mali, and last month, a US military plane had been shot at by Tuareg rebels there. Because these people, the people of Niger and Mali, are Muslims, the area is being called the Sahelian front of the war on terror. This has also been called the Banana Theory of Terrorism. What that refers to is the shape of the line drawn from Afghanistan to countries like Niger and Mali. It's got a wide curve, like a banana. The theory is that al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan will want to infiltrate the Sahel on the edges of the Sahara, in order to take control of the oil and uranium.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2007/2061062.htm

Posted by sahelsteve at October 24, 2007 10:53 AM