Utah House Passes Unanimous Resolution Urging US Senate to Ratify CTBT

We are happy to serve you a daily summary of the day's top nuclear policy stories each morning, with excerpts from the stories in bullet form.

Stories we're following today:

Utah House Urges Ratification of N-Test Ban Treaty - Salt Lake Tribune [link]

• The Utah House unanimously passed a resolution Monday urging the U.S. Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
• Rep. Jen Seelig, D-Salt Lake City, explained that the nonbinding HR4 applied only to the exploding and detonating of nuclear weapons and would not affect nuclear-power development.
• The 1996 treaty never was ratified, Seelig said, due to concerns about the nation's atomic stockpiles and weapons development in other countries. Those concerns have since been addressed, she added, and the treaty comes up for U.S. Senate ratification in 2011.
• "There has been growing bipartisan support of this treaty," Seelig said, "led by Republican and Democratic national security leaders."

Russia Sees New Nuclear Arms Treaty by April - Associated Press 

• A new treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals could be signed within two or three weeks, Russian news agencies cited Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying Tuesday.
• Lavrov spoke as U.S. and Russian negotiators resumed talks in Geneva on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December.
• "We would push for a conclusion in two to three weeks," Lavrov was quoted as saying. "For this there is every chance."
• Michael Parmly, spokesman for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva, confirmed treaty talks had restarted but declined to speculate on expectations for a quick conclusion.
• "We're committed to concluding negotiations," Parmly said.

Biden In Israel After Pledging US Support on Iran - Reuters [link]

• Vice President Joe Biden began a visit to Israel and the West Bank on Monday, assuring Israelis in a newspaper interview that Washington would close ranks with them against any threat from a nuclear-armed Iran.
• Biden, the most senior U.S. official to visit Israel since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, is widely expected to caution his hosts not to attack Iran pre-emptively while world powers pursue fresh sanctions against Tehran.
• In an interview with the biggest-selling Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth before leaving for Israel, Biden stressed U.S. efforts to drum up greater diplomatic pressure on the Iranians, as well as unilateral measures imposed by the U.S. Treasury.
• Asked about the prospect of an Israeli attack, he said: "Though I cannot answer the hypothetical questions you raised about Iran, I can promise the Israeli people that we will confront, as allies, any security challenge it will face. A nuclear-armed Iran would constitute a threat not only to Israel -- it would also constitute a threat to the United States."

For Iran, Enriching Uranium Only Gets Easier - New York Times [link]

• In the Iranian desert, at a sprawling industrial site ringed by barbed wire and antiaircraft guns, a shift in the enrichment of uranium is producing global jitters because it could shorten Iran’s path to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
• It is also illustrating one of the peculiarities of uranium enrichment, a version of the rich getting richer, really fast. The tricky process accelerates as it moves ahead. “The higher the concentration, the easier it gets,” said Houston G. Wood III, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia who specializes in nuclear enrichment. The process is, as scientists like to say, nonlinear.
• A practical illustration of nonlinearity is that Iran — or any other nuclear hopeful — needs increasingly few centrifuges to make uranium 235 increasingly potent. 
• The reason is that “you’re moving a lot more material at lower levels of enrichment,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation and disclosed the blueprint.
• Nuclear specialists said that the vast majority [nuclear] plants — unlike Iran’s — enrich their uranium to no more than 4 or 5 percent. Despite the technical ease of further enriching uranium into fuel for a bomb, said Mr. Albright, the Institute for Science and International Security’s president, “there are very few that go to weapon grade.”
• Note: The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is a Ploughshares grantee.

The Lighter Side

Nuclear Bunker Sold on eBay for $31,000 - Associated Press [link]

• An underground Cold War nuclear bunker set in the picturesque English countryside has been sold on the auction site eBay. It was sold by an unidentified private owner for £20,600 ($31,000) Monday after more than 40 bids were received.
• The bunker was built by the Royal Observer Corps at the height of the Cold War in 1959 to monitor the anticipated spread of radiation after a nuclear blast.
• The two-room bunker, located 15 feet beneath the ground, comes equipped with a phone, a chemical toilet and several air shafts. It is located in the Derbyshire Peak District 160 miles northwest of London.
• There are two other decommissioned ROC bunkers for sale on eBay, with prices starting at around £6,000 ($9,000). The advertisements promise the buyers a unique piece of Cold War memorabilia that can be used on weekends.
• Jed Dodd, who sold a ROC bunker several years ago, said some people are drawn to the bunkers but quickly lose interest. "People buy with dreams, but they soon get disillusioned," he said. "There are not meant to be lived in, and they're in the middle of nowhere."