Australia's Uranium Trade

Book excerpt: Australia's Uranium Trade explores why the export of uranium remains a highly controversial issue in Australia and how this affects Australia's engagement with the strategic, regime and market realms of international nuclear affairs. The book focuses on the key challenges facing Australian policy makers in a twenty-first century context where civilian nuclear energy consumption is expanding significantly while at the same time the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is subject to increasing, and unprecedented, pressures. By focusing on Australia as a prominent case study, the book is concerned with how a traditionally strong supporter of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is attempting to recalibrate its interest in maximizing the economic and diplomatic benefits of increased uranium exports during a period of flux in the strategic, regime and market realms of nuclear affairs. Australia's Uranium Trade provides broader lessons for how - indeed whether - nuclear suppliers worldwide are adapting to the changing nuclear environment internationally.