IAEA setting up an enriched uranium bank to keep nuclear programs “peaceful”

Speaking of nukes — and hedges against Russian power: The International Atomic Energy Agency will officially open the world's first “bank” for enriched nuclear fuel in Kazakhstan, former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz tells Bloomberg. The energy bank, to be called LEU, aims to “keep peaceful energy programs peaceful … without the significant costs of uranium enrichment and without the risks of proliferation.” Moniz says the bank is geared towards “nascent energy programs” in countries such as Egypt, where he says “the Russians would prefer to be the sole fuel suppliers for those plants going forward, but a country could be concerned if it's tied to just one supplier, which is where the fuel bank comes in -- as a backup should there be any cutoff in supply.”