Future of the Nuclear Security Environment in 2015 Proceedings of a Russian-U.S. Workshop (2009) / Chapter Skim
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MINIMIZING CIVIL HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKS BY 2015: A FORWARD-LOOKING ASSESSMENT OF U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION
MINIMIZING CIVIL HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKS BY 2015: A FORWARD-LOOKING ASSESSMENT OF U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION
Pages 89-104
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From page 89... ...
Holgate is Vice President for Russia/New Independent States Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. This paper draws substantially on Bleek's "Global Cleanout of Civil Nuclear Material: Toward a Comprehensive, Threat-Driven Response," CSIS Strengthening the Global Partnership Issue Brief #4 (September 2005)
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From page 90... ...
Although comprehensive, detailed data on civil sites possessing nuclear explosive materials has not been compiled, estimates suggest that there are approximately 100 metric tons of civil HEU worldwide.99 Located in civil research and test reactors, critical and subcritical assemblies, and medical isotope production facilities worldwide, some of this material is in facilities with high levels of security, some in facilities secured with little more than a padlock and a guard.100 Today there are more than 140 research reactors in more than 40 countries fueled U233 isotope. Constructing an explosive device with uranium at the lower end of the highly enriched spectrum poses additional technical challenges and also yields a larger and less powerful device.
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From page 91... ...
Potter, and Cristina Hansell, "Recent Weapons Grade Uranium Smuggling Case: Nuclear Materials are Still on the Loose," Center for Nonproliferation Studies Research Story, January 26, 2007, available at http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/070126.htm; accessed October 21, 2007. 103 "List of confirmed incidents involving HEU or Pu" International Atomic Energy Agency, undated, available at http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/RadSources/table1.html; accessed October 21, 2007.
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From page 92... ...
Efforts to reduce the availability of weapons-usable civil nuclear material date back at least to 1978, when the United States initiated its Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors program to develop low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuels for HEU-fueled research and test reactors and targets for medical isotope production facilities.106 Since the 1970s, both the United States and Russia have made sporadic efforts to take back civil HEU they had previously provided to other countries, motivated at least in part by proliferation concerns.
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From page 93... ...
In a unique twist, the non-governmental Nuclear Threat Initiative was asked to pledge financial assistance for spent fuel management as an additional inducement for securing Belgrade's approval.109 Characteristic of its involvement in these issues even today, and reminiscent of the Richard Nixon-Henry Kissinger approach to U.S.-Soviet arms control during the Cold War, the State Department approached cleanout efforts more as a means to improve bilateral relations than as a non-proliferation end in itself.110 107 For further information on Project Sapphire, see Philipp C Bleek, "Global Cleanout: An Emerging Approach to the Civil Nuclear Material Threat," Harvard University, September 2004, pp.
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From page 94... ...
113 "Global Threat Reduction Initiative: More than three years of reducing nuclear threats," National Nuclear Security Administration Fact Sheet, undated. Available at http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/factsheets/2007/NA-07FS-03.pdf; accessed October 23, 2007.
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From page 95... ...
The IAEA in particular conducts a range of activities, such as assisting sites assess and upgrade security at civil nuclear installations, that help to make it less likely that civil nuclear materials will make their way into nuclear bombs. The agency cannot conduct cleanout operations in its own right; it has neither the mandate to do so nor the ability to take vulnerable nuclear material into its possession.
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From page 96... ...
The pace of operations remains slow, if steadily improving, and driven more by metrics than by threats.121 Given substantial difficulties in dealing with some of the more threatening sites, program officials appear to be concentrating their efforts on the more easily completed sites, which does not bode well for the pace once easier sites have been completed and only more challenging ones remain. While the completion of current programs would be a significant step toward securing civil nuclear materials, much material still remains outside their purview.
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From page 97... ...
Despite the technical consensus that for most operating research reactors conversion to LEU would result in minimal loss of capacity, and that new reactors have been designed to run on LEU with performance equal to or better than existing HEU-fueled reactors, participants resisted any constraint on asserted rights to use any kind of nuclear material for peaceful purposes.124 Despite a plethora of IAEA-sponsored efforts to reduce global HEU risks, this rightsbased perspective has prevented the IAEA from adopting a formal policy that would require that it reject any applications for technical assistance in establishing HEU-fueled research reactors or other HEU-based civilian facilities. An existing de facto understanding would cause any such applications to be frowned on and LEU-based (or non-nuclear)
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From page 98... ...
By contrast, Australia's OPAL reactor, opened this year as a state-of-the-art regional center of excellence, demonstrates that cutting-edge research and isotope production can be carried out with LEU-based technology.128 In the near term, to the degree that LEU conversion fuel is not available or that a small number of HEU-fueled research reactors are needed to develop new technologies in service of the anticipated "nuclear renaissance," adequate security systems designed to thwart demonstrated outsider and insider theft or diversion scenarios must be in place at such facilities. The United States and Russia Should Work with Others to Complete, Maintain, and Share a Comprehensive Database of Global Civil Nuclear Material Stockpiles A comprehensive database would enable threat-based prioritization and facilitate efforts to approach, negotiate with, and implement cleanout efforts at specific sites.
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From page 99... ...
An effective global cleanout will require sharing information across countries. At the same time, program officials are understandably wary of disseminating information about vulnerable nuclear material stockpiles too broadly, and sharing restricted information such as that contained in the databases currently in existence or under construction, even with allied countries, poses considerable hurdles.
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From page 100... ...
and Russian participants agreed that on nuclear threat reduction broadly, it is time for Washington and Moscow to move from a donor-assistance relationship to a full partnership, one with the two sides sharing responsibility for setting priorities, managing projects, and funding efforts. The United States and Russia Must Do More to Bring Targeted Sites on Board Sites currently being or already addressed are the low-hanging fruit, and negotiations with many other sites appear to have bogged down.
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From page 101... ...
Certainly, post-September 11, 2001, post-Beslan security concerns call for a reexamination of the purely environmental basis for decades-old decisions to limit nuclear materials imports. The United States and Russia Should Do More to Spur Potential Partner Countries to Act and to Facilitate Cooperation When They Do The United States and Russia can do much more to spur others to join in global cleanout activities.
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From page 102... ...
The United States and Russia Should Engage the Private Sector More Fully to Assist in the Global Cleanout Mission The current design of the U.S. GTRI program makes extensive use of private businesses to accomplish HEU removals, through contracts for packaging and shipping fresh and spent HEU to the United States and Russia for storage and disposition.
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From page 103... ...
have also played valuable roles in global cleanout efforts to date and may be able to expand their engagement. One of their most valuable roles has been in the analysis and public advocacy for the global cleanout mission.
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From page 104... ...
The United States and Russia have a clear opportunity, today and in the coming years, to ensure that securing civil HEU is not the answer to that question. 135 Additionally, as one participant at Vienna observed, U.S.-Russian threat reduction cooperation is important not only for its threat ameliorating effects, but also because successful cooperation helps the relationship weather political tensions that may undercut cooperation in other domains.
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