PHASING OUT CIVILIAN HEU IN RUSSIA

Abstract

Russia holds the largest stocks of civilian highly enriched uranium (HEU) of any country, operating more than fifty research reactors, pulsed reactors, and critical assemblies using HEU, as well as nine HEU-fueled icebreakers. Russia's participation in international efforts to phase out civilian HEU is crucial if international HEU minimization efforts are to succeed. Individual Russian institutes and organizations participate in international programs to replace HEU with low-enriched uranium in Soviet-supplied research reactors, develop alternative fuels, and repatriate fresh and spent HEU fuel from third countries. However, an overarching national policy on HEU phase-out has yet to be adopted. There are many obstacles to obtaining such a commitment from Moscow. At the same time, the ongoing reform of the Russian nuclear industry and plans for expansion of domestic nuclear power generation and for increased nuclear exports create opportunities for securing such a commitment.

Keywords:

• Russia
• highly enriched uranium
• low-enriched uranium
• nuclear fuel
• proliferation

Acknowledgements

Erika Hunsicker, a former graduate student and research assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, provided an invaluable contribution to the research and writing of this report.

Notes

1. As of early 2007, Russia had between 655 and 955 MT of HEU. See International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), See International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), Global Fissile Material Report 2007: Second Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, p. 10.

2. Thomas Cochran, Robert S. Norris, Oleg Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), p. 52.

3. On Russia's overall HEU holdings: David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, “Civil HEU Watch: Tracking Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium,” in Global Stocks of Nuclear Explosive Materials, Institute for Science and International Security, August 2005. On global civilian HEU stocks: Alexander Glaser and Frank von Hippel, “Reducing the Threat of HEU-Fueled Nuclear Terrorism,” Arms Control Today 36 (January/February 2006), p. 5.

4. Historically, the Soviet Union did not differentiate between military and civilian stocks; Russia has not published official data on its total HEU stocks.

5. “Terroristicheskiye organizatsii ne mogut sozdat atomnoi bomby, zayavil ministr Rossii po atomnoi energii” (Terrorist organizations are not capable of building an atomic bomb, says Russian minister of atomic energy), ITAR-TASS, May 19, 2003.

6. CNS researchers question the veracity of this attempted theft of 18.5 kg of HEU in 1998 in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, and treat it as an insufficiently corroborated incident. For more information on this and other illicit trafficking incidents, see the Newly Independent State (NIS) Nuclear Trafficking Database maintained by CNS for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), <www.nti.org/db/nistraff/index.html>. For a discussion of the Chelyabinsk case, see William C. Potter and Elena Sokova, “Illicit Nuclear Trafficking in the NIS: What's New? What's True?” Nonproliferation Review 9 (Summer 2002), pp. 113–120.

7. Practically all post-2000 HEU seizures involve small samples. Culprits claimed that additional quantities were available or could be obtained, though so far these claims have not been confirmed or material found.

8. According to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), “Rapid upgrades are those that can be made to the site within a six-month time frame, without going through an extensive design process. … If the site is deemed to have sufficient vulnerabilities to warrant further upgrades, comprehensive upgrades will be installed. Comprehensive upgrades target all areas of a site that need improvements based on site vulnerability assessments and specific upgrade designs. Because the scope of these upgrades is more extensive and involved, comprehensive upgrades usually require 12 to 18 months or more to complete.” NNSA, “NA-25: Office of Nuclear Warhead Protection,” <www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/nwp.shtml>.

9. GAO, “Progress Made in Improving Security at Russian Nuclear Sites, but the Long-Term Sustainability of U.S.-Funded Security Upgrades is Uncertain,” GAO Report 07-404, February 2007.

10. See the concluding article by Cristina Hansell in this issue's special section. See also the discussion about global security standards and protection of HEU-fueled reactors and other facilities housing fissile materials in Russia and worldwide in Chapter 2 of Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007 (Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, and Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2007), pp. 3–5, pp. 60–95.

11. GAO, “Progress Made in Improving Security at Russian Nuclear Sites,” p. 11.

12. The MPC&A upgrades done in cooperation with DOE, for instance at Russia's nuclear icebreaker fleet, are an exception.

13. CNS personal interviews with several Russian MPC&A specialists in 2007 suggest that one of the reasons the DBT approach is not planned in Russia for the near term is the high costs to implement such a requirement if it is made mandatory. Russia, “Regulations for Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, Nuclear Installations, and Sites for the Storage of Nuclear Materials,” Russian Federation Government Decree No. 456, July 19, 2007. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, anonymity was granted to some interview subjects contacted for the research of this article.

14. DOE MPC&A consultant, personal interview with CNS staff.

15. “V etom godu terroristy 2 raza pytalis proniknut na yadernyye obyekty” (Terrorists attempted to get access to nuclear sites twice this year), ITAR-TASS, October 25, 2001.

16. “Terroristy stremyatsya zavladet radioaktivnymi materialami i poluchit dostup k yadernym technologiyam—Patrushev” (Terrorists seek to acquire radioactive materials and get access to nuclear technologies—Patrushev), Interfax, September 6, 2007.

17. As cited by Frank von Hippel in “HEU in Critical Assemblies, Pulsed Reactors and Propulsion Systems,” presentation at the Technical Workshop at the HEU Symposium in Oslo, Norway, June 17–18, 2006.

18. GAO, “Nuclear Security: Action May Be Needed to Reassess the Security of NRC-Licensed Research Reactors,” GAO Report, GAO-08-403, January 31, 2008, p. 19.

19. Cited in Cristina Chuen, “CNS Researcher Speaks on Nuclear Terrorism at Russian Duma,” CNS Research Story, October 4, 2007.

20. Vyacheslav Struyev, deputy director of the Krylov Central Scientific Research Institute, presentation at the international seminar on Countering Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism, hosted by the Russian State Duma, Moscow, September 27, 2007. Russian Government Decree No. 576 of September 21, 2005, is entitled, “On the Approval of the Rules for the Deduction of Funds by Organizations and Facilities Operating Especially Dangerous Radioactive and Nuclear Installations (Except for Nuclear Power Plants), to Form Reserves Dedicated to the Provision of Security at Such Facilities Throughout all Stages of their Life Cycle and Development.”

21. Chuen, “CNS Researcher Speaks on Nuclear Terrorism at Russian Duma.”

22. “Books and Reports: Nuclear Security Culture: the Case of Russia,” WMD Security Culture, Center for International Trade and Security, <www.wmdsecurityculture.blogspot.com/>.

23. As cited in Chuen, “CNS Researcher Speaks on Nuclear Terrorism at Russian Duma.”

24. Critical assemblies are, among other applications, used to mock up power reactors.

25. These numbers are based on the IAEA database Nuclear Research Reactors in the World, <www.iaea.org/worldatom/rrdb/>, and additional research by CNS staff.

26. IPFM, Global Fissile Material Report 2007, p. 13.

27. For details on these reactors and their HEU fuel consumption, see the article by Ole Reistad and Styrkaar Hustveit, in this issue.

28. Office of Nonproliferation, NNSA, “RERTR Program Project Execution Plan,” February 16, 2004, as referenced in Glaser and von Hippel, “Reducing the Threat of HEU-Fueled Nuclear Terrorism,” p. 3, and in line with the calculations in Reistad and Hustveit in this issue's special section.

29. NTI, “NTI 2006 Annual Report,” p. 23.

30. Frank von Hippel, “A Comprehensive Approach to Elimination of Highly-Enriched-Uranium From All Nuclear-Reactor Fuel Cycles,” Science and Global Security 12 (2004), p. 148–149; Frank N. von Hippel, “The Need to Address the Larger Universe of HEU-Fueled Reactors, Including: Critical Assemblies, Pulsed Reactors and Propulsion Reactors,” paper presented at the International Meeting on Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors, IAEA, Vienna, November 7–12, 2004.

31. I.P. Matveyenko et al., “Physical Inventory of Nuclear Materials on BFS Facility,” MPC&A 2000 conference, Obninsk, Russia, May 22–26, 2000.

32. There are forty-eight critical assemblies and pulsed reactors using HEU in Russia, according to Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007. This includes both civilian and military reactors and assemblies.

33. Concluding report, International Conference on Research Reactors in the 21st Century, held at the Research and Design Institute for Power Engineering, Moscow, June 20–23, 2006.

34. IAEA, “Management of High Enriched Uranium for Peaceful Purposes: Status and Trends,” IAEA-TECDOC-1452, June 2005, p. 11.

35. The U.S.-Russian plutonium disposition program intends to burn 34 MT of plutonium from dismantled warheads in commercial reactors. Russia successfully tested the possibility of using MOX fuel fabricated from this plutonium in BN-600. However, the use of MOX fuel to burn plutonium from nuclear warheads depends on the prospects of the plutonium disposition program and on the agreement between the United States in Russia to use BN-600 for this program. So far, the United States has indicated a preference for using light water reactors to burn MOX fuel under this program.

36. IAEA, Fast Reactors Database, <www-frdb.iaea.org/database/database.html>.

37. Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, “Proekt reaktora BN-800” (BN-800 Reactor Design).

38. Although MOX fuel can be mocked up with plutonium, few sites with critical assemblies have sufficient plutonium for this purpose. Nevertheless, some experts believe future fast reactor critical experiments are likely to use plutonium, not HEU (though it should be noted that plutonium is also a fissile material of proliferation concern). LEU cannot be used to mock up MOX fuel. According to a joint DOE/European study, uranium enriched to at least 35 percent is required. See Massimo Salvatores et al., “Advanced Fast Reactor Development Requirements: Is There Any Need for HEU?” Cadarache/Argonne, April 2006, presented at the Oslo Symposium on Minimization of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in the Civilian Nuclear Sector, June 17–20, 2006. For a discussion of future critical experimental needs, and the prediction that plutonium, not HEU, will be required to research fuels derived from spent nuclear fuel for sodium-cooled fast reactors, see, Harold F. McFarlane (Idaho National Laboratory), “Is It Time To Consider Global Sharing Of Integral Physics Data?” presentation at GLOBAL 2005, October 2005.

39. Rosatom officials (one former, one current), interviews with the author, Moscow and Monterey, January and June 2006.

40. Frank von Hippel, “A Comprehensive Approach to Elimination of Highly-Enriched-Uranium From All Nuclear-Reactor Fuel Cycles,” pp. 137–164.

41. O. Kochnov and V. Pozdeyev, “Production of Mo-99 in the Branch of Federal State Unitary Enterprise Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry,” paper presented at the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Workshop on Molybdenum-99 Production Using Low Enriched Uranium, Sydney, Australia, December 2–5, 2007.

42. Committee on Utilization of Technologies Developed at Russian Research and Educational Institutions, National Research Council and Russian Academy of Sciences, Technology Commercialization: Russian Challenges, American Lessons (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998), p. 77.

43. Russell M. Ball, V.A. Pavshook, and V.Ye. Khvostionov, “Present Status of the Use of LEU in Aqueous Reactors to Produce Mo-99,” RERTR 1998 International Meeting, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 1998.

44. Argonne National Laboratory official, interview by Cristina Hansell, Argonne, Illinois, April 2007.

45. Roy Brown, president of Nuclear Medicine Solutions (formerly of TCI Medical), e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, April 3, 2007. TCI Medical was involved in the Kurchatov project.

46. Nikolay Khlopkin, Boris Pologikh, Yuriy Sivintsev, and Vladimir Shmelev, “Preliminary Study of Sea Radioactive Contamination from Dumped Nuclear Reactors,” Kurchatov Institute Report No. 31/1-1949-93, 1993, as cited in Ole Reistad, Morten Bremer Mærli, and Nils B⊘hmer, “Russian Naval Nuclear Fuel and Reactors: Dangerous Unknowns,” Nonproliferation Review 12 (March 2005), pp. 174–176.

47. Reistad, Mærli, and B⊘hmer, “Russian Naval Nuclear Fuel and Reactors,” pp. 181–183.

48. Nikolay Melnikov et al., “Dolgovremmennoye bezopasnoye khraneniye otrabotavshego yadernogo topliva sudovykh yadernykh ustanovok v Severo-Zapadnom regione Rossii” (Long-term safe storage of spent nuclear fuel from naval reactors in the Northwestern region of Russia), Mining Institute of the Kola Science Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2003, p. 4.

49. For more information on icebreaker reactor fuel and the possibilities of conversion, see the discussion in the article by Ole Reistad and Styrkaar Hustveit in this issue.

50. Nuclear material that is highly irradiated is considered “self-protecting”; lightly irradiated material or nuclear material that has cooled loses this protection. See: V. Bragin and L. Ong, Radiation Levels Associated with Nuclear Reactor Fuel, STR-287 (Vienna: IAEA, 1992).

51. Most infamous is the Lepse service ship, with 639 spent fuel assemblies on board that cannot be removed because they have corroded into the hull. As of February 2007, there were 6,793 spent fuel assemblies on five other vessels at Atomflot. Vladimir Konukhin, Kola Science Center, “Otsenka razvitiya situatsii v oblasti dolgovremennogo khraneniya i zakhoroneniya OYaT i TRO na yevropeyskom severe Rossii” (Assessment of long-term scenarios involving long-term storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and solid radioactive waste in the European part of Northern Russia), unpublished report prepared for the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, February 2007.

52. “Murmansk Loses Control over Icebreaker Fleet,” BarentsObserver.com, February 19, 2008.

53. Rosatom's Collegium approved construction in 2005. See “Vopros finansirovaniya stroitelstva ATES v Severodvinske eshche ne reshen” (Issue of financing floating nuclear power plant in Severodvisk has not be resolved yet), Regnum.ru, June 15, 2005.

54. Valentin Ivanov, Russian State Duma deputy, personal interview with the author, November 8, 2005; Vyacheslav Belyayev and Konstantin Leontyev, “Reactor Out to Sea,” Nuclear Engineering International (January 2004), p. 18, states that the KLT-40S will use “ceramic metal fuel and <20% enriched uranium, meeting nuclear non-proliferation requirements.”

55. In fact, 19 percent enriched fuel can be used to create a nuclear explosive devise; however, more than 800 kg of the material would be needed. Charles Ferguson and William Potter, The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (Monterey: CNS, 2004), p. 177.

56. “Rekomendatsii kruglogo stola na temu: ‘O razvitii atomnoy energetiki na osnove energoblokov mobilnogo bazirovaniya” (Recommendations of the roundtable discussion ‘On the development of nuclear energy concept on the basis of mobile units’), Moscow, June 30, 2005, approved by the State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communications, July 6, 2005.

57. Sergey Leskov, “Atomnyye reaktory nakanune dalnikh stranstviy” (Nuclear reactors on the eve of their distant travels), Izvestiya, November 29, 2003.

58. Irina Rybalchenko, “Mirnyy atom gotov stat ostrovom,” (Peaceful atom is ready to become an island) Kommersant, January 30, 2004; “Nauka i obrazovaniye” (Science and Education), Atomnaya promyshlennost (publisher), December 1, 2003.

59. For detailed information on floating nuclear power plants, possible nuclear fuels for the first prototype reactor, and the discussion of safety and security implications, see Cristina Hansell Chuen and Ole Reistad, “Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plants,” Jane's Intelligence Review, December 1, 2007, pp. 1–7.

60. For detailed information on floating nuclear power plants, possible nuclear fuels for the first prototype reactor, and the discussion of safety and security implications, see Cristina Hansell Chuen and Ole Reistad, “Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plants,” Jane's Intelligence Review, December 1, 2007, pp. 1–7.

61. It should be noted that due to differences in measurement systems, a Soviet designation of 21 percent enrichment was often equivalent to 20 percent in the West (that is, LEU).

62. IAEA, “Management of High Enriched Uranium for Peaceful Purposes: Status and Trends,” p. 41.

63. For more information on fuel removal efforts, see the article by William C. Potter and Robert Nurick in this issue.

64. Von Hippel, “A Comprehensive Approach to Elimination of Highly-Enriched-Uranium From All Nuclear-Reactor Fuel Cycles,” p.147.

65. NNSA, “GTRI: More Than Three Years of Reducing Nuclear Threats,” NNSA Fact Sheet, December 2007.

66. “DOE Puts More Reactors on List of Candidates for Conversion to LEU,” NuclearFuel, March 26, 2007, pp. 1, 8.

67. Office of the Press Secretary, “U.S.-Russia Joint Fact Sheet: Bratislava Initiatives,” White House, February 24, 2005.

68. “Commercial Program Destroys Nuclear Warheads While Generating Clean Electricity,” USEC press release, March 5, 2008.

69. “Rosatom Zarabotal v 2004 gody 3,5 mlrd na eksporte svoey produktsii” (In 2004 Rosatom earned 3.5 billion from its exports), January 27, 2005.

70. U.S. Department of Commerce, “United States and Russian Agreement Reached,” press release, February 1, 2008.

71. NNSA, “U.S. and Russia Cooperate to Eliminate Dangerous Nuclear Material,” Press Release, April 24, 2008.

72. In 2006, all HEU was removed from Krylov Shipbuilding Research Institute (Krylov Central Scientific Research Institute—TsNII) in St. Petersburg.

73. DOE official involved in MCC efforts, personal interview with the author, Washington, DC, October 2006.

74. INVAP, “Refuelling a Polish Reactor with Argentine Silicide Fuel Elements,” INVAP News, June 11, 2007, <www.invap.net/news/novedades-e.php?id=20070627215653>.

75. Russian Government Decree No. 250, “O podpisanii Soglasheniya mezhdu Pravitelstvom Rossiyskoy Federatsii i Pravitelstvom Federativnoy Respubliki Germaniya o postavkakh vysokoobogashchennogo urana dlya issledovatelskogo yadernogo reaktora ‘Myunkhen II’” (On the signing of an agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the German Federal Republic on supplying highly enriched uranium for the “Munich II” nuclear research reactor), February 26, 1998, in the Legislation in Russia; Russian Government Decree No. 886, “O podpisanii soglasheniya mezhdu pravitelstvom Rossiyskoy federatsii i Evropeyskim soobshchestvom po atomnoy energii o postavkakh vysokoobogashchennogo urana dlya issledovatelskogo yadernogo reaktora v g. Pettene (Korolevstvo Niderlandov)” (On the signing of an agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and Euratom on the supply of highly enriched uranium for the nuclear research reactor at Petten (Kingdom of the Netherlands)), December 21, 2001; “Russian HEU Delivered to France for Use in Research Reactors,” WISE News Communique; Russian Government Directive No. 1557-r, “O peregovorakh mezhdu OAO ‘TVEL’ i Institutom atomnoy energii (g. Sverk, Respublika Polsha)” (On negotiations between the TVEL joint stock company and the Atomic Energy Institute (Swierk, Poland)), Rosatom, November 11, 2002.

76. An IAEA report characterizes the Russian export system for critical nuclear exports, including uranium with more than 20 percent enrichment, as “quite strong.” IAEA, “Management of High Enriched Uranium for Peaceful Purposes.”

77. Oleg Bukharin, Christopher Ficek, and Michael Roston, “U.S.-Russian Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) Cooperation,” in RANSAC Policy Update, Summer 2002, pp. 1, 3.

78. For example, the Krylov Shipbuilding Research Institute indicated an interest in converting to LEU. Even some military installations, including at the nuclear weapons laboratory at Sarov, indicated interest in such projects.

79. “Terroristicheskiye organizatsii ne mogut sozdat atomnoi bomby, zayavil ministr Rossii po atomnoi energii” (Terrorist organizations are not capable of constructing an atomic bomb, says Minister of Atomic Energy of Russia), May 19, 2003.

80. “The Russian Federation and Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Delivery Systems: Threats, Assessments, Problems and Solutions,” CNS translation of Russia's White Paper of June 23, 2006, <cns.miis.edu/pubs/other/rusfed.htm>.

81. For instance, see several presentations at the international seminar on Countering Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism, hosted by the Russian State Duma Security Committee, World Anticriminal and Antiterrorist Forum, and Russia's National Anticriminal and Antiterrorist Forum at the State Duma on September 27, 2007. For more information about this event, see Chuen, “CNS Researcher Speaks on Nuclear Terrorism at Russian Duma.”

82. For example, some Russian participants in an international tabletop exercise on nuclear terrorism organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Moscow on February 2, 2006, argued that LEU poses a higher proliferation risk than HEU because of its wider availability, less stringent controls, and the relative simplicity of converting it to HEU.

83. Several Russian nuclear specialists, personal interviews with CNS staff, 2006–2007.

84. N. Ermakov, “Future of Research Reactors in Russia,” Atompressa, No. 3, January 2002, p. 2, as cited by Bukharin et al., in “U.S.-Russian Reduced Enrichment,” p. 11.

85. “Nachala raboru konferentsiya ‘Issledovatelskiye reactory v XXI veke’” (Conference ‘On research reactors in the 21st century’ started its work), Minatom report on the opening of the conference on research reactors, June 21, 2006.

86. Bukharin, et al., “U.S.-Russian Reduced Enrichment,” p. 14.

87. The new uranium-molybdenum fuels are being developed both for existing Russian-built research reactors and for new advanced reactor designs. See A. Vatulin, et al., “Current Status of the Development of High Density LEU Fuel for Russian Research Reactors,” <www.rertr.anl.gov/RERTR29/PDF/4-2_Vatulin.pdf>.

88. For a further discussion of the “centers of excellence” idea, see the final article in this issue's special section by Cristina Hansell.

89. RERTR and Russian officials at RERTR and other international meetings, interviews with CNS staff, February and December 2007.

90. Rosatom specialist involved in the RERTR program, personal interview with the author, Moscow, January 2006.

91. “Rekomendatsii kruglogo stola na temu: ‘O razvitii atomnoy energetiki na osnove energoblokov mobilnogo bazirovaniya’” (Recommendations of the roundtable discussion “On the development of nuclear energy on the basis of mobile energy units”), Moscow, June 30, 2005, approved by the State Duma Committee on Energy, Transport and Communications, July 6, 2005.

92. “Terroristicheskiye organizatsii ne mogut sozdat atomnoi bomby, zayavil ministr Rossii po atomnoi energii” (Terrorist organizations are not capable of constructing an atomic bomb, says Minister of Atomic Energy of Russia), May 19, 2003.