Publication

This paper reminds us that an often overlooked and unconventional source of uranium for weapons and nuclear power is phosphate fertilizers. While covering this topic, the text’s authors particularly focus on 1) unconventional uranium sources; 2) IAEA safeguards dealing with these sources and how they are mined; 3) the extraction of uranium from phosphate rock; 4) the military use of phosphate-based uranium in the US, Israel and Iraq; 5) proliferation worries about unconventional uranium extraction in Syria and Egypt; and 6) the international trade in phosphate.