ABSTRACT
A centralized spent-fuel storage system, offered by a nation with an acceptable set of qualifications and operated in an intelligent way, would provide an important means for many nations to close their fuel cycles and thereby solve a significant industrial concern. Additionally, it may have the important positive effect of preventing horizontal proliferation by allowing many nations to proceed with the development of peaceful uses of nuclear power while discouraging development of certain proliferation-sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. The civil nuclear industry, in which long lead-times are required throughout the fuel cycle, has been plagued by governments' unilateral policy changes affecting international nuclear trading conditions, reprocessing, proliferation, and a host of other policy issues. Public perceptions of the problems of handling nuclear waste and of the dangers of proliferation, however, cause serious concern in some countries over the extension of nuclear power.
