IASNOVA
IAEA
– The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organisation on 29 July 1957.
– Though established independently of the United Nations through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute, the IAEA reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
– Widely known as the world’s “Atoms for Peace and Development” organization within the United Nations family, the IAEA is the international centre for cooperation in the nuclear field.
Headquarters – Vienna, Austria.
The IAEA serves as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nuclear power worldwide. The programs of the IAEA encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear energy, science and technology, provide international safeguards against misuse of nuclear technology and nuclear materials, and promote nuclear safety (including radiation protection) and nuclear security standards and their implementation.
India – a member of IAEA
The IAEA’s current Director General is Yukiya Amano.
The IAEA is generally described as having three main missions:
- Peaceful uses: Promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy by its member states,
- Safeguards: Implementing safeguards to verify that nuclear energy is not used for military purposes, and
- Nuclear safety: Promoting high standards for nuclear safety.
IAEA Safeguards
Article II of the IAEA Statute defines the Agency’s twin objectives as promoting peaceful uses of atomic energy and “ensur[ing], so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.” To do this, the IAEA is authorised in Article III.A.5 of the Statute “to establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable and other materials, services, equipment, facilities, and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its supervision or control are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose; and to apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State, to any of that State’s activities in the field of atomic energy.”
The Department of Safeguards is responsible for carrying out this mission, through technical measures designed to verify the correctness and completeness of states’ nuclear declarations.
India and IAEA News-
27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018)
22–27 October 2018, Gandhinagar
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fosters the exchange of scientific and technical results in nuclear fusion research and development through its series of Fusion Energy Conferences. The 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018) aims to provide a forum for the discussion of key physics and technology issues as well as innovative concepts of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a source of energy.
The scientific scope of FEC 2018 is intended to reflect the priorities of this new era in fusion energy research. The conference aims to serve as a platform for sharing the results of research and development efforts in both national and international fusion experiments that have been shaped by these new priorities, and to thereby help in pinpointing worldwide advances in fusion theory, experiments, technology, engineering, safety and socio-economics.
Other participating international organizations – the ITER Organization and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
New reactors under IAEA norms based on source of uranium- Feb- 2019
India will decide on the number of new reactors to be placed under IAEA safeguards only after assessing if these will be fuelled by uranium procured abroad, a senior official said.
There are at present 22 operational reactors, of which 14 are under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards as these use imported fuel.
India puts four more nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards- Sep- 2018
India has decided to place four more reactors under the IAEA safeguards. Accordingly, two Russian-designed Pressurised Light Water Reactors and two Pressurised Heavy Reactors being built with Indian technology will be covered.
With this, a total of 26 Indian nuclear facilities will be under the international nuclear energy watchdog.
Project Midan
Project Midan: Developing and Building an Underground Nuclear Test Site in Iran
Israeli-seized nuclear archive documentation indicates that Iran had begun the process of establishing an underground nuclear test site and developing the necessary methods to estimate nuclear explosive yield in the early 2000s, an effort known as “Project Midan.”
The project had identified five potential test site locations and was developing approaches, including seismic and other methods, to measure the explosive yield of an underground nuclear test.
