VnExpress – Tổng thống Barack Obama hôm qua phê chuẩn một thỏa thuận hạt nhân dân sự với Việt Nam, mở đường cho việc bán các lò phản ứng của Washington cho Hà Nội.
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| Một nhà máy điện hạt nhân của Mỹ tại bang New York. Ảnh minh họa: national geographic |
“Tôi xác nhận rằng việc thực thi thỏa thuận này sẽ thúc đẩy và không tạo ra bất kỳ nguy cơ bất hợp lý nào đến an ninh và quốc phòng chung”, AFP dẫn bản thông báo mà ông Obama gửi đến Bộ Năng lượng Mỹ.
Sự phê chuẩn của tổng thống chính thức mở ra quá trình xem xét dài 90 ngày tại quốc hội Mỹ. Nếu thỏa thuận này không trái với điều luật nào, nó sẽ có hiệu lực.
Theo thỏa thuận, Việt Nam cam kết không sản xuất các thành phần phóng xạ cho vũ khí hạt nhân và ký kết các tiêu chuẩn chống phổ biến vũ khí hạt nhân của Mỹ.
Trước đó, Việt Nam đã nhất trí không làm giàu hoặc tái chế uranium, các bước đi quan trọng dẫn đến việc chế tạo vũ khí hạt nhân, theo một thỏa thuận được ký kết bên lề hội nghị cấp cao Đông Á tại Brunei hồi tháng 10/2013. Việt Nam cũng cam kết tìm kiếm các thành phần cho chu trình nhiên liệu từ thị trường quốc tế công khai.
Thị trường năng lượng hạt nhân của Việt Nam hiện đứng thứ hai ở Đông Á sau Trung Quốc và dự kiến tăng lên 50 tỷ USD vào năm 2030, theo AFP.
Ngoài Mỹ, Việt Nam cũng có thỏa thuận hợp tác hạt nhân với Nga.
Anh Ngọc
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Obama approves Vietnam nuclear deal
Washington (AFP) – President Barack Obama Monday approved a civilian nuclear pact with Vietnam which could lead to the sale of US reactors to Washington’s energy-hungry former war foe.
The move by the president formally opened a 90-day review process in Congress. If no legislation is passed contravening the accord, it will then come into force.
Under the accord, US officials said, Vietnam committed not to produce radioactive ingredients for nuclear weapons and signed up to US nonproliferation standards, which the White House bills as the strongest in the world.
“I have determined that the performance of the agreement will promote, and will not constitute an unreasonable risk to, the common defense and security,” Obama said in a memorandum to the Energy Department.
Vietnam agreed not to enrich or reprocess uranium, key steps in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, in the deal signed on the sidelines of an East Asia summit in Brunei in October.
It also pledged to seek components for its fuel cycle on the open, international market.
Vietnam’s market for nuclear power — already the second largest in East Asia after China — is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2030.
Vietnam faces energy shortages and is pursuing nuclear energy, officials have said, with a plan that calls for the first nuclear power plant to be in commercial operation by 2020.
It wants nuclear energy to provide more than 10 percent of its total power generation needs by 2030.
The communist-ruled nation already has a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia. Despite Hanoi’s determination to pursue nuclear power, there has been domestic opposition with many voicing fears that the locations selected for the plants make them vulnerable to earthquakes or tsunamis.
Đọt Chuối Non 
US Deal Spotlights Vietnam’s Ambitious Nuclear Plans
FILE – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, meets with Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh during ASEAN meetings in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei on Tuesday, July 2, 2013.
October 24, 2013
On October 10, Secretary of State John Kerry signed a civil cooperation agreement with Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Brunei.
The so-called 123 Agreement will allow U.S. companies to export nuclear equipment to Vietnam and take advantage of the country’s potential nuclear power market, which is expected to grow from $10 billion currently to $50 billion by the end of 2030.
Despite having its own sources of coal, oil and hydropower, energy analysts predict Vietnam will have to import energy as soon as 2015 to maintain its rapidly growing economy. In anticipation of the problem, the government has announced ambitious plans to build as many as 13 nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. Deals have already been made with Russia and Japan.
Murray Hiebert, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, thinks these nuclear projects require long-term investments and relationships. However, he says, the U.S. nuclear deal does not appear to be solely about U.S. economic interests.
“I think there are two things that are at work here, one is potentially the economics and the jobs, the other is the U.S. has moved quite quickly to improve relations with Vietnam. We’ve had President Sang visiting here in July… [and] Vietnam is part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership along with the U.S. and 10 other countries,” said Hiebert.
Not everyone is happy about the plans to build a nuclear energy industry in Vietnam.
The country is on a seismic fault line and has a long coastline. In 2011, a study by an Italian research institution suggested the site planned for the first reactor, in Ninh Thuan province, could be especially vulnerable to earthquake-generated tsunamis.
So far, only a few critics have voiced their concerns, but Hiebert says this number could grow with time.
“Does it eventually lead to opposition in Vietnam like we had to the Chinese-invested bauxite mine or to the high speed rail link between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City? I really don’t know, but I suspect as Vietnam gets closer to developing nuclear reactors that there will be more questioning among the environmental groups and others,” said Hiebert.
Some experts within the country have raised concerns that the government’s plans are too ambitious. One of them is Pham Duy Hien, a former director of the Dalat Nuclear Research Institute, which houses Vietnam’s nuclear research reactor.
Hien says there are reports that plans to start building two Russian-funded reactors have been delayed, but so far there is no official confirmation. He says they have to be delayed because not enough groundwork has been done.
Hien points out that although Vietnam does need energy, it does not need it so badly that it must rush to get a plant ready by 2020.
Crucially, the proposed U.S. deal prohibits Vietnam from enriching or reprocessing plutonium or uranium while developing nuclear energy.
That is aimed at preventing Vietnam from developing nuclear weapons, but regional defense expert Professor Carl Thayer from the University of New South Wales in Australia says he thinks such nuclear proliferation concerns are minimal.
“It would make perfect sense if major powers are against you to blackmail or threaten with nuclear weapons… You could tell China, ‘yes you can kill us or defeat us but we’ll destroy Shanghai’, but I don’t see that.”
Thayer said the signing of the 123 Agreement is an indication of strategic trust between the countries and any backtracking on Vietnam’s part would be too risky.
Although it’s impossible to say for sure whether the U.S. Congress will ratify the deal, as long as nuclear power is handled in a safe way and used only for civilian purposes, Hiebert says he believes the Obama administration will put forward a good case for the agreement to go ahead.
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