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Last Updated: Oct 8, 2008 - 12:30:54 PM |
The announcement revealed the latest progress of a program
designed to repatriate material the United States provided to friendly
nations between the 1950s and 1970s when there was little perceived
risk of terrorists stealing weapon-usable nuclear materials (see GSN,
Sept. 19, 2007).
During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, NNSA officials coordinated
the return of all “eligible” highly enriched uranium spent fuel from
four nations: Argentina, Germany, Portugal and Romania. The most
recent batch, 10.3 kilograms from Germany, was delivered Sept. 23 to
the U.S. Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to an NNSA
spokeswoman.
The eligible designation applies to types of fuel that the United
States either has the technology or plans to develop the technology to
dispose of safely.
“The complete removal of all eligible U.S.-origin highly enriched
uranium from Argentina, Portugal, Romania and Germany is another
milestone in NNSA’s cooperative effort to reduce the threat of nuclear
proliferation and demonstrates the U.S. government’s strong
international commitment to nonproliferation,” said NNSA Administrator
Thomas D’Agostino in a prepared statement. Argentina
The fiscal 2008 transfers began with completing the removal of 6
kilograms of HEU spent fuel from Argentina in December 2007, according
to Kelly Cummins, NNSA director of former Soviet Union and Asian threat
reduction. Argentina retains about 2 kilograms of additional,
“noneligible” uranium that Buenos Aires has promised to blend down to
less dangerous enrichment levels, she said.
The total of about 8 kilograms corresponds somewhat with an independent
estimate of Argentina’s holdings by the Institute for Science and
International Security. That 2005 study determined there were 8.8
kilograms of HEU material at the nation’s RA-6 reactor site. The study
also reported, however, the presence of an additional 13 kilograms of
HEU material used for producing medical isotopes (see related GSN
story, today). Germany
Germany had two transfers in fiscal 2008, starting with 8.8 kilograms
from a research reactor in June and finishing with last month’s
shipment of 10.3 kilograms from the same site, Cummins said. Some
U.S.-origin material is set to remain, but the United States intends to
support the return of a batch of Russian-origin highly enriched
uranium, she said.
The ISIS study estimated that Germany has significantly more than 1
metric ton of highly enriched uranium. Portugal and Romania
NNSA officials orchestrated a joint shipment of HEU spent fuel from
Portugal (6.6 kilograms) and Romania (15.3 kilograms) that was
completed in August, Cummins said. Portugal is now completely free of
highly enriched uranium and Romania has some Russian-origin material
that it plans to repatriate with U.S. assistance, she added.
Consequences of Theft
The United States began to recognize the risk of shipping weapon-usable
material overseas in the 1970s when it became clear that security
measures at many research reactors were inadequate.
Before then, the United States typically exported nearly weapon-grade
uranium when it offered fuel assistance to foreign research reactors,
Matthew Bunn of Harvard University’s Managing the Atom project told
Global Security Newswire today.
“Most U.S.-origin material tends to be in the 90-percent range or the
70-percent range,” he said, describing the proportion of the uranium
235 isotope in the material. Uranium in U.S. nuclear weapons has
generally been enriched to 90 percent or more.
In 1978, Washington began a take-back program to retrieve much of the
material from foreign research reactors.
More recently, the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative programs was
created to aid the repatriation of both U.S.- and Russian-origin highly
enriched uranium. It has supported several such transfers over the
past few years, including the fiscal 2008 projects (see GSN, July 18).
The project’s aims, however, are complicated by a poor understanding of
how much material is held overseas, Bunn said.
“Remarkably, [the Energy Department] simply does not know how much
U.S.-origin HEU exists in foreign countries,” says his annual report,
Securing the Bomb 2007.
The department, however, is completing an effort to estimate the
amount, Bunn said today.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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