LEVERAGING U.S. POLICY FOR A GLOBAL COMMITMENT TO HEU ELIMINATION

Abstract

U.S. leadership has been the driving force behind reducing the civilian use of highly enriched uranium (HEU). By tracing the history of linkages between U.S. HEU policies at home and abroad, this paper examines the reasons why the U.S.-led Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) and HEU removal programs, despite great technical successes, have not led to quicker elimination of weapon-grade uranium. It argues that the United States must take urgent steps domestically and internationally in order to achieve global elimination of the use of HEU in the civilian sphere. Washington must restore consistency of HEU policy by rescinding the Burr Amendment and consider reductions in the U.S. military stockpile as a means of signaling its commitment. U.S. leaders must also find more creative ways to engage countries and individual facilities in HEU minimization and to extend the norm against HEU use worldwide.

Keywords:

• United States
• highly enriched uranium
• low-enriched uranium
• RERTR program

As the first country to harness the power of the atom, the United States has more than a half-century's worth of scientific knowledge and practical experience in dealing with highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be employed not only to fuel nuclear reactors, but also as the core of a nuclear weapon. Throughout this time, U.S. nonproliferation initiatives and policy making on HEU use in the civilian sphere have shaped HEU policies around the world. Today, U.S. efforts to reduce civilian HEU have set the stage for the creation of an international norm on global HEU elimination. Meeting this goal, however, requires an enduring U.S. commitment and still greater engagement of partners worldwide.

Much like the dual nature of the atom, U.S. policy toward civilian HEU use has historically exhibited contradictory traits. During the brief U.S. nuclear monopoly, concern about proliferation risks posed by fissile materials inhibited the spread of HEU. As part of the 1953 Atoms for Peace plan, however, the United States began assisting other countries with the peaceful application of nuclear technologies, spreading research and test reactors and the low-enriched uranium (LEU) and HEU fuel to power them across the globe. By the early 1970s, HEU exports from the United States averaged about 1,200 kilograms (kg) per year for reactors of all types.1 As these exports expanded unchecked, development of a normative framework for peaceful nuclear activities lagged far behind.2

India's first nuclear detonation in 1974, unsafeguarded nuclear activities in several countries, and recognition of the growing threat of terrorism led to the conclusion that the United States may be moving toward “life in a nuclear armed crowd,” heralding a dramatic recalibration of U.S. nonproliferation policy.3 The urgent need to forestall proliferation threats posed by the possible diversion of unirradiated or mildly irradiated HEU research reactor fuels called for a high-level commitment to resolving daunting technical and political challenges.4 As members of the U.S. political community under the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations began to grapple with the challenge of HEU minimization, they called on scientists to find the technical fixes. This resulted, in 1978, in the initiation of the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) program, the goal of which was (and still is) to “develop the technical means to utilize LEU instead of HEU in research reactors without significant penalties in experiment performance, operating costs, reactor modifications, and safety characteristics.”5

Thirty years after the inception of RERTR, however, the results of civilian HEU minimization efforts are mixed. While scientists have been able to find solutions to most of the technical challenges to reducing HEU use, political commitment to these efforts in Washington (both high-level and interagency) has fluctuated, and the priority level of HEU reduction remains uncertain. Only after the attacks of September 11, 2001 brought home the reality of the threat of nuclear terrorism did the United States realize that reducing domestic civilian HEU use was important both to lessen risks to the nation and to persuade other countries to follow the U.S. lead. Washington signaled a high-level commitment in 2004 when it consolidated all of the HEU minimization programs under the umbrella of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and allocated funding and personnel to implement these efforts.6 But the 2005 passage of the Burr Amendment to the Energy Policy Act (named for then-Representative, now Senator, Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina), easing exports of U.S.-made HEU to Canada and Europe for medical isotope production, eroded the credibility of the U.S. initiatives. Moreover, in some eyes the legitimacy of U.S. leadership on HEU minimization is tarnished by the country's status as a nuclear weapon state that retains significant military stockpiles of HEU.

This article begins with an overview of U.S. civilian HEU policies before the creation of the RERTR program and then examines the successes—and challenges—that HEU reduction efforts have encountered at home and abroad during the past three decades. The article concludes with the lessons learned from the U.S. experience and provides recommendations for moving toward HEU elimination.

The Early Years of U.S. Civilian HEU Policy

Since the 1950s, the United States has attempted, with varied success, to balance its role as promoter of the peaceful atom with its concerns that the atom may be exploited for military purposes. This danger was recognized from the outset and served as the basis for U.S. leadership in creating and promoting strong normative nuclear frameworks, both domestically, with the U.S. Atomic Energy Act and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, and internationally, with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system. However, although civilian HEU use was identified as a risk early on, the primary concern of U.S. nonproliferation policy was the threat posed by plutonium in the civilian sphere.

In the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which showcased the horrifying potential of the military atom, the United States initiated a vigorous internal debate over policies on the sharing of nuclear materials and technology.7 While the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal report and the Baruch plan suggested creating international mechanisms to oversee the sharing of nuclear technology, the Atomic Energy Act (the McMahon Act) was instead “crafted to keep the U.S. nuclear monopoly intact.”8 Most importantly, the act also created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), designated as the “exclusive owner of all facilities for the production of fissionable materials.”9

Less than a decade later, however, as part of the 1953 Atoms for Peace initiative, the United States began to promote peaceful nuclear energy worldwide, providing technological assistance to “countries that agreed to forego the development of nuclear weapons.”10 To facilitate these efforts, the Atomic Energy Act was amended in 1954 to make possible bilateral nuclear agreements with allies as well as countries in the developing world.11 While early efforts promoted under the Baruch plan to establish an international control authority and a regulatory and normative framework faltered, Atoms for Peace laid out the foundation for the IAEA and its system of safeguards.

Due to concerns over the sharing of militarily applicable nuclear materials, Atoms for Peace initially envisioned the export of LEU fuel only. Uranium below 20 percent enrichment was, and still is, recognized to be a fully adequate isotopic barrier to weapons usability. However, in the 1960s, construction of high-power research reactors and power upgrades at many existing facilities created a need for new fuels. This need was met by using high enrichment levels, 90–93 percent uranium-235 (U-235), in existing fuels with relatively low uranium densities, instead of developing new LEU fuels with high uranium densities.12 Thus, the United States began to supply HEU fuel for use in research reactors around the world, becoming the world's largest supplier. Soon, HEU was used by the vast majority of research reactors—even though LEU would have sufficed in many cases. By the mid-1960s, HEU had become readily available, and most research reactors using aluminum-based fuels were utilizing HEU as their fissile material.13 Indeed, some reactor operators later reported that the decision to use highly enriched fuel was due to their “limited knowledge at that time”—other fuels were not considered.14 A report for the Energy Research and Development Administration, a predecessor to the Department of Energy (DOE), also noted, “As for uranium, some time in the 1960s our attention wandered and we began to ship highly enriched uranium to non-weapon countries. We appear to have shipped some five tons overseas—perhaps 300 bombs of readily fissionable material. Our confusion has been durable and bipartisan.”15

According to the DOE, between 1957 and 1996 the United States exported about 25.6 metric tons (MT) of HEU—containing about 18.6 MT of U-235—to other countries for peaceful use (data on HEU transferred for mutual defense purposes to the United Kingdom are unavailable).16 Almost all of this material was supplied to Canada, Japan, and the Euratom countries. Other recipients of U.S.-origin HEU included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey.17 U.S. exports of HEU peaked in 1967 at more than 2,500 kg.18

While U.S. bilateral nuclear agreements originally included clauses on the return of U.S.-origin HEU material to the United States, in 1964, the Johnson administration reportedly initiated sales of HEU abroad without requiring spent fuel return.19 In 1968, the AEC formalized a structured lease mechanism for U.S.-origin spent fuel, the so-called offsite-fuels policy, which provided foreign reactor operators with a guaranteed disposition path for U.S.-origin spent nuclear fuel and target material (used for radioisotope production, as explained below).20 The policy enhanced the attractiveness of nuclear cooperation with the United States, but it was also reportedly motivated by the U.S. wish to obtain the remaining HEU in the spent fuel for U.S. weapons use.21 Thus, at the end of the 1960s there was no indication that U.S. policy makers were at all concerned over the massive transfer of HEU to sites around the world. Large inventories of fresh nuclear fuel were allowed to accumulate in many locations.

Initiation of Civilian HEU Reduction Efforts

In the wake of India's nuclear test in 1974, U.S. nonproliferation policy was substantially revised. In 1977, at the instigation of the Carter administration, representatives of sixty-six nations launched the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE), a two-year study to explore ways to prevent the proliferation of materials and technologies that could help nuclear weapons programs. While the INFCE's conclusions focused mostly on the threats posed by plutonium reprocessing, they also recommended the minimization of HEU use in the civilian sector.22 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which established a requirement for full-scope safeguards in the recipient country as a condition for all U.S. nuclear exports, was introduced in Congress that same year (it was passed and signed into law in 1978). The Carter administration also announced its intent to “avoid new commitments to export significant quantities of HEU except when the project is of exceptional merit” and when LEU or lower-enriched fuels were “clearly shown to be technically infeasible”; to require “direct Presidential approval for any supply of HEU greater than 15 kilograms,” and to make “efforts to identify projects and facilities which might be converted to the use of LEU instead of HEU.”23

In 1978, concerns about the proliferation potential of U.S. HEU exports culminated in the creation of the RERTR program, an effort to reduce and eliminate the use of HEU in the civilian sphere worldwide. RERTR, formed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), was to be funded by the then-newly created DOE. Although some of the scientists were initially concerned about the decrease in reactor performance that use of LEU fuel was likely to entail, over the years those involved in RERTR became ardent advocates of the program. Their research, together with work at other U.S. laboratories and around the world, eventually created the technical know-how to convert most of the world's research reactors from HEU to LEU use with minimal effect on performance.

In the early years of developing conversion technologies, however, attention was naturally devoted to reactors where operators were both willing to cooperate and had the relevant expertise. Furthermore, successful conversion cases were needed to convince many of the other facilities to seriously consider cooperation with RERTR.24 However, converting reactors in countries that were not of great concern—Japan and several Euratom states—made the entire program of questionable nonproliferation significance.25 This lack of a visible nonproliferation benefit created difficulties in gaining interagency support (and sufficient funding), as described below. Political sensitivities, too, became a significant impediment to engaging facilities in conversion or fuel return, even when there were few technical problems.

As RERTR matured, two crucial principles, universality and spent fuel return, came to be recognized as critically important. At the annual RERTR 1995 International Meeting (RERTR-1995), Paul Leventhal and Alan Kuperman of the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) defined these principles:

Universality has meant three things: 1) Those reactors that can convert to existing LEU fuel must do so; 2) For remaining reactors, advanced fuel will be developed, to which they must convert when it is successfully qualified; and 3) No new reactors will be constructed to use HEU fuel. Reactor operators have been willing to convert—and to accept the economic and performance penalties of doing so—because the universality principle guaranteed that they would not be put at a competitive disadvantage . …

The guarantee of spent fuel return (for both LEU and HEU fuel) is based on four grounds: 1) Reducing the vulnerability of spent HEU fuel to theft or diversion; 2) Abiding by longstanding U.S. commitments; 3) Inducing cooperation with the RERTR program; and 4) Avoiding an additional, perverse penalty for conversion to LEU—i.e. losing the guarantee of spent fuel return.26

Achieving universality of conversion or fuel return, however, has been difficult in practice. In some cases, the DOE was able to use the offsite-fuels policy (and later fuel return policies) as an incentive for reactor operators to cooperate in reactor conversion. The possibility that after a certain date facilities would no longer be able to return HEU fuel meant that they might have to deal with environmental, security, and other costs long into the future.

Reactor conversion activities began in the 1980s in the United States and Europe. By 1984, the Ford Nuclear Reactor at the University of Michigan and the Osiris experimental reactor, located in France's Saclay Nuclear Research Center, were both running on LEU. Despite these advances, the commitment to RERTR and HEU minimization was lukewarm at best, with periods of significant funding cutbacks and deprioritization. Energy Secretary James Edwards reportedly initially requested zero funding for the program in fiscal 1982; however, upon pleas from other DOE officials and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chiefs, who argued that cuts in RERTR would “preclude the timely achievement of program objectives” and potentially “undermine … the credibility of U.S. policy in the international nuclear community,” the program was funded.27 Meanwhile, in 1984, the NRC initiated drafting of a rule to mandate that the nongovernmental research reactors it licensed convert to LEU if usable fuel was available and if the federal government paid for the conversion.28 At the time, the State Department reportedly took the position that domestic conversion would only provide a “marginal” enticement for convincing foreign reactor operators to convert.29 The NRC rule became official in 1986, but DOE showed little interest and was not under much pressure to convert its reactors from HEU, even where LEU fuel was available.30 Efforts to promote conversion to LEU were further hampered by DOE's plan to construct the HEU-fueled Advanced Neutron Source (ANS), which had been under development since approximately 1983.31

Throughout the decade, RERTR was marginalized because of interagency battles between DOE and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), which significantly weakened the program until the mid-1990s and further shifted the goal posts and the timeline on development of advanced LEU fuels.32 RERTR became a “political football” between the two agencies in 1987, when upon DOE's request for funding assistance Congress transferred RERTR to ACDA's ledger.33 Even though development and testing of advanced fuels was then thought to be several years away, DOE argued that the research portion of the program was winding down and, therefore, ACDA needed to take responsibility for RERTR implementation.34 But the thinly stretched ACDA maintained that DOE should also contribute funding since ANL was a DOE entity; by 1988 ACDA had decided to phase out RERTR by fiscal 1991.35 Only then did DOE recommit to funding RERTR.36 Still, DOE officials did not firmly believe that reactor operators would readily convert even if ANL successfully developed and tested the high-density fuels.37

By the late 1980s, the U.S. government had not seen enough results from RERTR in the areas that it cared about. Although the program reportedly reduced annual exports of HEU from nearly 700 kg in 1978 to about 160 kg by 1990, reactor conversion and fuel development were proceeding slowly and had yet to affect HEU use in countries of concern.38 Some policy makers even questioned whether the ANL program was “featherbedding”—seeking appropriations for the benefit of the lab.39 It was not clear that RERTR would survive for much longer. At the same time, it was evident that a return to promoting HEU use around the world would not occur: U.S. exports of HEU declined considerably in the 1980s, while no new exports of HEU-fuel facilities were contemplated.40

HEU Minimization Efforts Expand During the 1990s

Even though the conclusion of the Cold War heralded nuclear policy changes for the United States, HEU minimization continued to face budgetary and bureaucratic pressures. The issue was not a priority for the George H.W. Bush administration. RERTR's few staunch proponents in Congress, with the help of a small number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private U.S. companies, had to work hard to keep the program funded.41 DOE's miniscule request of $300,000 for RERTR funding for fiscal 1991 was intended only for providing conversion assistance, even though RERTR wanted $15 million over five years to complete advanced fuel research and development.42 However, in June 1990, Representative James Scheuer (Democrat of New York) successfully led the effort to restore RERTR funding for the year. Scheuer, who personally lobbied the DOE for RERTR, argued for “zero bomb-grade exports,” stating that in terms of national security, RERTR was “a bargain basement bonanza.”43 The program survived another budget battle for fiscal 1992.

While R&D of new LEU reactor fuels was able to continue, a fledgling research program on ways to eliminate the use of HEU targets (special fuel elements made of enriched uranium that are irradiated in a reactor) to produce the radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99)—the daughter product of which is metastable technetium-99 (Tc-99m), the most widely used radiopharmaceutical in nuclear medicine—ceased work from fiscal 1990 through fiscal 1993 due to lack of funding.44 Further, DOE dragged its feet on renewing the offsite-fuels policy due to what the DOE referred to as various “difficult and complex budgetary, environmental and technical issues.”45 The policy had expired in 1988 for HEU (and in 1992 for LEU fuels) due to the need to complete an environmental impact statement.46 This created confusion among facility operators, who were uncertain that the United States would take back the spent and fresh HEU materials that they would no longer need post-conversion.

By the early 1990s, the downward trend in U.S. exports of HEU was evident.47 An announcement by President Bush in July 1992 that the “United States shall not produce plutonium or highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosive purposes,” together with the end of U.S. HEU production, made the commitment to reduce domestic HEU use clear.48 Congress, meanwhile, focused its efforts on promoting further reductions of U.S. HEU exports, through the enactment of the Schumer Amendment to the Energy Policy Act (after then-Representative, now Senator, Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York) in October of that year.49 The amendment conditioned imports of U.S.-origin HEU on the following: there was no existing alternative LEU fuel for the reactor or production process; the facility agreed to switch to LEU fuel as soon as it was available; and the United States was actively developing an alternative LEU fuel suitable for the facility.50 U.S. exports of HEU had decreased before passage of Schumer, but they subsequently fell to very low levels.51 In 1995 and 1996, the United States did not export any HEU at all.52 There have been only a handful of U.S. HEU exports in the last decade.53

The Clinton administration included the promotion of HEU minimization in its nonproliferation policy, reportedly codified in the September 1993 Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-13.54 One part of this effort was the attempt to persuade Germany to redesign for LEU fuel a new reactor it was planning to construct, the FRM-II.55 In 1993 the Clinton administration pushed to have the ANS run on LEU fuel as well.56 Plans for the ANS were abandoned in 1995, though due more to cost than proliferation concerns. It would take one more year, however, for RERTR to begin to overcome interagency friction.57

Military Stockpile Transparency Removes Some Impediments to HEU Reduction

Policies related to military HEU have had a negative impact on U.S. efforts to promote the minimization of HEU in the civilian sphere. For example, the United States was unwilling to discuss the possible adoption of HEU guidelines along the lines of the plutonium guidelines (eventually adopted in 1998) because of concerns about potential transparency requirements.58 Despite the Clinton administration initiatives to increase transparency, described below, the fact that the United States retained large quantities of HEU for military use continued to undermine its moral authority in demanding reduction of civilian holdings from other countries.

In 1993, the Clinton administration moved to enhance stockpile transparency by making HEU (and plutonium) declared excess to military needs subject to a voluntary safeguards agreement, paving the way for IAEA inspections at some U.S. facilities.59 The same year, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary launched the DOE Openness Initiative, which served as basis for declassification of certain information on the U.S. fissile material stockpile. As part of this initiative, DOE compiled a report detailing U.S. production and use of HEU through September 30, 1996. The report, entitled Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, was completed in January 2001 but not released to the public until February 2006, following a successful Freedom of Information Act request by the Federation of American Scientists.60

The report represented a “comprehensive effort to document and declassify” the U.S. inventory of HEU and reported that as of September 30, 1996, the United States had 740.7 MT of HEU, containing 620.3 MT of U-235. Of this total, 562.9 MT was declared required for DOE and Department of Defense (i.e., military) programs, and 177.8 MT was considered excess to U.S military needs.61 Of the civilian HEU, 28.9 MT was contained in spent naval, production, and research reactor fuel (92 percent of which is located at the Idaho National Laboratory and South Cardina's Savannah River Site); 17 MT HEU was contained in fresh reactor fuel; 93.2 MT was in metal; 17.6 MT was in oxides; and 21.1 MT was in other forms.62

Unfortunately, the manner in which the report was released diluted its usefulness as a signal of increasing U.S. stockpile transparency. Subsequent declarations of fissile material excess to military needs, and decreases in the U.S. inventory of civilian HEU (due to downblending to LEU) have not had a noticeable impact on global perceptions of the U.S. HEU policy. By 2007, according to estimates by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the United States had about 478 MT of military HEU, 166 MT of HEU declared excess to military needs, and approximately 10 MT of civilian HEU.63 While the quantities of HEU declared excess were significant, they have failed to engender much additional support for HEU minimization in other countries.

Handling the Soviet Breakup: Removing Vulnerable HEU

The breakup of the Soviet Union focused concerns on HEU that remained in insecure facilities in the newly formed independent states. The United States speedily mobilized to remove and eliminate this material, engaging officials at the highest levels, including Vice President Al Gore. In 1994, under Project Sapphire, 581 kg of HEU was removed from the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, and shipped to the United States for downblending and disposition.64 Two years later, after Soviet delays in removing HEU from the site, the United States began negotiating with Georgia and Russia to transfer to Russia 4.3 kg of fresh fuel and 800 grams of spent fuel from the shutdown IRT-M research reactor in Mtskheta, near Tbilisi, Georgia. When negotiations hit an impasse, the decision was made to ship the material to the Dounreay Nuclear Complex in Scotland, which was accomplished under Project Auburn Endeavor on April 23, 1998.65 The transfers were successful but elicited public protests. Policy makers in both the United States and United Kingdom therefore realized they would not be able to import any more Soviet-origin HEU to either country. Negotiations with Russia continued, resulting in the Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) program, established in 1999. Difficulties in obtaining environmental licenses for the return of irradiated nuclear fuel caused the program to focus on fresh HEU fuel initially, but it eventually expanded to include both fresh and spent research reactor fuel from more than twenty reactors in seventeen countries.66

Although the Soviet Union had engaged in projects to reduce fuel enrichment levels in research reactors it exported, these efforts had died out by about 1989.67 Individuals involved with RERTR became concerned about the security of HEU at Soviet-origin reactors. In 1993, an agreement was concluded between RERTR and four Russian institutes, led by the Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering in Moscow, to cooperate in the development of LEU fuel for conversion of Soviet-designed reactors; the program came to be known as the Russian RERTR program.68 These early initiatives faced some setbacks but eventually grew into today's successful joint research on very high-density fuels.

RERTR Makes a Comeback

The year 1995 brought stark revelations of Iraq's diversion of HEU for its nuclear program. It was a pivotal year for RERTR. As NCI's Leventhal and Kuperman pointed out at RERTR-1995, the “threats to RERTR” at the time included the prospect of the FRM-II startup using HEU, the Dutch HFR Petten and South Africa's SAFARI reactors refusing to convert, a slowdown in advanced fuel development, and the failure to renew the U.S. offsite-fuels policy.69 NCI called on participants to draft personal letters to President Bill Clinton and proposed that the IAEA play a greater role in RERTR.70

In the wake of RERTR-1995, the Clinton administration finally began to address the HEU minimization policy drifts, starting with the offsite-fuels policy. In late 1995, Energy Secretary O'Leary decided to abandon a proposal that would allow U.S.-origin fuel to undergo reprocessing at Dounreay, Scotland. Instead, in 1996, DOE unveiled the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel (FRR SNF) Acceptance program, which allowed countries that had received either HEU or LEU fuel from the United States to return spent or fresh fuel for disposal and/or storage.71 In most cases, countries paid a fee for this service, depending on their income level. As of 1996, the United States had exported about 25.6 MT of HEU; however, only a small portion of this material—U.S.-origin research reactor fuel elements—was eligible to be returned to the United States under FRR SNF.72 Exotic or experimental reactor fuels were not eligible, nor were U.S.-origin HEU fresh research reactor materials in certain countries, such as Canada and Italy, or a variety of other non-fuel HEU materials.

ACDA renewed its commitment to RERTR over the winter of 1995–1996, and the State Department began to exhibit more vigorous support as well. Although interagency efforts failed to persuade Germany to rethink its FRM-II plans, RERTR slowly began to recover its momentum, with State, ACDA, and the DOE laboratories gradually improving trust and cooperation.73 In addition, a new program, the Global Research Reactor Security Initiative, was formed in 1997 to enhance the physical protection of facilities outside Russia and the United States with HEU holdings.

Terrorist Threat Provides Motivation to Minimize HEU

The events of 9/11 reinvigorated the RERTR program; Washington realized that HEU holdings at research and test reactor facilities around the globe could be attractive to terrorists. A call was made to accelerate program activities, “with the goal of converting all the world's research reactors to low-enriched fuel at the earliest possible time.”74 Russia was engaged in this effort as well. A Joint Expert Group, established at the May 2002 Bush-Putin summit to look at ways to reduce inventories of special nuclear materials like HEU, recommended that the countries should commit themselves to the “accelerated development of LEU fuel for both Soviet-designed and United States-designed research reactors.”75 The following year, the RERTR program submitted a plan to convert these reactors within a decade and to convert the production of medical isotopes to LEU.76 In order to implement the new plan, RERTR requested a significant funding increase. The U.S. government not only increased financial support, but also reorganized the program to bring the disparate elements involved in HEU minimization under one roof.

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative

On May 26, 2004, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced the GTRI program, consolidating the efforts of the RERTR, FRR SNF, and RRRFR programs in order to improve coordination and provide new impetus.77 The need to bring HEU minimization initiatives under one roof had become clear when efforts to remove a large quantity of HEU from a vulnerable reactor in Serbia were stymied for years by the diffuse, disconnected, and inadequately funded U.S. government programs, none of which had a clear mandate to deal with the material.78 The Global Research Reactor Security Initiative was soon folded into the GTRI as well.79 Abraham also pledged that the United States would spend about $450 million on GTRI over ten years.80

The increased funding turned out to be critical to maintaining the viability of RERTR. By the end of 2004, high-density nuclear fuel developed by RERTR had failed irradiation tests in both France and Russia, dashing hopes for the fuel's rapid qualification and use in converted high-power research reactors. An aggressive development and testing program was initiated to solve the problems but needed money. Had these failures occurred before 9/11, RERTR would likely have had to close up shop. Instead, funding was forthcoming, fuel development continued, and DOE conversion plans expanded to include conversion of additional U.S.-designed research reactors to LEU. A goal was set to convert all of them by 2013.81

HEU minimization also obtained new high-level Russian support. In February 2005, at the Group of Eight Summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the profile of the issue by signaling a joint political commitment to combating the threat of nuclear terrorism. Moreover, as part of the 2005 Bratislava Joint Statement on Nuclear Security Cooperation, the United States and Russia agreed to work together to convert more than thirty U.S.- and Soviet-supplied research reactors around the world from the use of HEU to LEU. Although U.S. diplomats tried to obtain Russia's promise to convert research reactors on its own territory to LEU, Moscow was not yet willing to make such a pledge, wary of committing itself to a potentially expensive enterprise and uncertain of the implications for Russian science. Although U.S. officials continue to engage Moscow on this issue, they have not pushed hard publicly, nor have the highest-level policy makers been involved.

Discussions between Russian nuclear officials and GTRI officials on reactor conversion evolved from talk of a preliminary agreement in late 2006, to consideration of a prototype reactor conversion in early 2007, to the exchange of information on conversion experiences in other countries by late 2007. Representatives of GTRI say they have been approached by numerous Russian facility operators who are interested in conversion assistance but have reportedly been told by Rosatom that they must wait for approval from the Russian presidential administration.82 Recent reforms to Russia's nuclear establishment—including the abolition of the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy and the transition of authority to the new “Rosatom” State Atomic Energy Corporation, along with the transformation of many nuclear enterprises into joint stock companies—are potentially creating additional roadblocks to progress. Without very high-level attention, the impasse is unlikely to be overcome.

Outside of Russia, however, GTRI activities gained momentum. In March 2005, the United States, Mexico, and Canada launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.83 Under the partnership, the three countries promised to convert all civilian reactors to LEU fuel by 2011, where appropriate LEU fuel is available.84 The United States is slated to convert six domestic research reactors under the program; Mexico will convert its single research reactor in Mexico City, and Canada will convert three research reactors—though this commitment does not include a promise to end the use of HEU targets, which Canada uses in isotope production. RERTR scientists have been cooperating in the conversion of all of these reactors, and GTRI funding has increased each year to finance these and other HEU minimization activities.85

RERTR Today

The reactor conversion mission has increased dramatically over the last few years both domestically and abroad. The commitment under the North American partnership to convert all civilian domestic reactors was bolstered by a DOE promise to develop fuel to make it possible to convert every U.S. reactor, including some of the most technically difficult reactors to convert in the world. Challenges with fuel development have pushed back slightly the goal of completing U.S. conversion by 2013 to 2014, which RERTR is moving aggressively to meet. After the conversion of research reactors at the University of Florida, Texas A&M University, and Purdue University, only five university-based research reactors in the United States use HEU fuel. Of these, two—at MIT and Missouri—require the development of high-density fuel that will not be available until after 2010; the other three are slated for conversion by 2009.86 Four additional high-power reactors (one of which is a critical assembly) are located at U.S. government facilities: Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the National Bureau of Standards. DOE has established a High Performance Reactor Working Group, which includes representatives from these facilities, to ensure that conversion efforts are successful. DOE plans to qualify a very high-density uranium-molybdenum fuel by 2010 and to convert these high-powered reactors to the new fuel by 2014.87

At the same time, RERTR has expanded its list of reactors in other countries that it plans to engage. The 2005 RERTR list included 106 reactors for conversion by 2014 but was not comprehensive and in particular was missing HEU-fueled civilian research and test reactors in Russia, as well as China's HFETR.88 In January 2007, RERTR goals expanded to conversion of 129 reactors (supplied by the U.S., Russia, and China) worldwide by 2018. DOE deemed seventy-eight additional reactors that were either defense-related or “of a unique design” (and therefore “non convertible”) to be beyond the scope of RERTR's programmatic goals.89 As of March 2008, fifty-five reactors had either been shut down, converted to LEU, or were using a partial LEU core, which means RERTR is a little shy of the halfway point of meeting its expanded conversion goals.90 Additionally, China converted its HFETR research reactor and critical assembly at the Leshan Nuclear Power Institute in the spring of 2007. Though China only has a few HEU-fueled reactors, it now appears poised to convert or shut down all of them, welcome support for the GTRI effort.91

FRR SNF and Gap Materials

As noted above, the FRR SNF program, which came to replace the DOE offsite-fuels policy in 1996, was brought under the GTRI umbrella in 2004. The initial 2006 end date for the program was extended in 2005 to permit the acceptance of spent fuel until May 2019 (though such returns must be authorized by May 2009). However, GTRI has already fulfilled more than 85 percent of its return goal and plans to fully return all of the materials eligible under FRR SNF by 2013.92 Program officials have stated that as of March 2008, about 8,078 spent nuclear fuel assemblies had been returned in forty-one shipments.93 According to DOE, this represents more than 225 kg of HEU since 2004.94 Of thirty-four countries that received HEU from the United States, twenty-eight have participated, and twelve have returned their supply.95

At the instigation of Jack Edlow of the nuclear fuel cycle company Edlow International, DOE developed a “gap materials” program to cover the HEU (and other proliferation-sensitive materials) not covered by FRR SNF.96 In early 2006, 35 kg of HEU was returned to the United States from the United Kingdom and Canada under this program; France's nuclear conglomerate Areva has also been engaged in efforts to recover 85 kg of HEU from several European facilities with the support of DOE.97 By January 2007, DOE had removed 83 kg of gap materials and planned to remove an additional 889 kg. By contrast, 12,329 kg of materials in Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France were deemed “secure or [on an] acceptable disposition path.”98 By December 2007, 140 kg fresh HEU material had been removed from Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy.99 Efforts to remove gap materials from facilities in Chile, Denmark, and Switzerland are ongoing.

Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return

Since 1999, the United States has been formally cooperating with Russia and the IAEA on the RRRFR program. Since 2004, RRRFR has “dramatically increased the pace of removals.”100 DOE officials indicate that as of September 2007, the program's scorecard included repatriation of 446 kg of fresh HEU fuel, with 76 kg remaining.101 By 2008, fresh fuel had been repatriated to Russia from ten countries—Serbia (2002), Romania (2003), Bulgaria (2003), Libya (2006), Uzbekistan (2004), Czech Republic (2004, 2005), Latvia (2005), Germany (2006), Poland (2006, 2007), and Vietnam (2007).102

The program also aims to arrange the return of spent fuel from these reactors to Russia but has faced technical and political obstacles. After long and complex negotiations that included environmental impact statements and detailed plans for the fuel disposition, the first return of Soviet-origin spent HEU fuel was completed in April 2006, with four shipments totaling 63 kg from the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, returned to Russia. In December 2007, RRRFR repatriated 2 MT of spent fuel (containing 80 kg HEU) from the Nuclear Research Institute at Rez, Czech Republic, to Russia's Mayak facility for reprocessing (the United States provided $35 million for transport).103 While earlier plans called for all Soviet-origin fresh fuel to be returned by 2006 and all spent fuel by 2010, RRRFR has faced significant political hurdles to achieving its goals.104 In particular, some facilities with Soviet-origin HEU have not yet agreed to convert to LEU, and some countries (such as Ukraine) have been unwilling to return all of their HEU stocks to Russia.105

When it comes to difficult cases, the record of prior removal efforts suggests the importance of engaging third parties, such as the IAEA, Russia, an alternative recipient country, or an NGO such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Expanding the variety of technical, economic, and diplomatic resources that could be called upon is crucial to the successful negotiation and implementation of additional HEU minimization projects. Without the creative engagement of more stakeholders, agreement is likely to be at best delayed, at worst denied.106

In addition to repatriation, GTRI has initiated a Spent Fuel Disposition Project for the BN-350 breeder reactor in Kazakhstan, which is centered on provision of storage and security for the reactor's large spent fuel stores. The current plans call for the 10,000 kg of spent fuel in Aktau to be transported to a new long-term storage site at Baikal-1, near the former Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk.107 In this case, the willingness to consider alternative solutions has been critical. Kazakhstan has been reluctant to repatriate the fuel to Russia, while the United States has been unable to fund all of the activities related to the project. To make the project a reality, the Baikal-1 storage site solution was accepted, while additional funders are presently being engaged in the effort.

The U.S. Military Stockpile

Over the past half-century, U.S. military HEU storage facilities began to deteriorate. Irradiated HEU materials were kept in precarious conditions; by 9/11 security levels did not meet the new threats. In May 2004, Energy Secretary Abraham announced a series of initiatives to improve the safety and security of these materials. The changes would eventually include consolidation of U.S. HEU holdings, shutdown of some reactors, construction of a new HEU storage facility, and new security guidelines. The effect of the initiatives has been dramatic, even though their implementation encountered difficulties. Less impressive, however, has been the amount of HEU materials that the U.S. military has declared excess to weapons needs. Though the commitment to removing material from weapons use is laudable, the fact that the majority of the material has been retained for other military needs (chiefly submarine propulsion) has lessened the impact that the declaration might otherwise have made. Furthermore, the method for assessing the amount of material to be defined as excess is not transparent, leading some experts to argue that the United States still has far more material than it needs.108 At the least, there is little evidence that the excess-weapons-material declarations have resulted either in similar moves in other nuclear weapon states, or in more understanding of the urgency of securing and disposing of civilian HEU around the globe.

Both the U.S. military and civilian stockpiles are generally considered highly secure, in accordance with NRC and DOE regulations. DOE facilities, such as the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where much of the U.S. HEU stockpile is located, have reportedly successfully tightened security procedures.109 Security standards have been altered to require that guard forces at nuclear complex facilities be capable of preventing well-organized attackers from accessing U.S. nuclear materials. To accomplish this task, the design basis threat (DBT), a baseline of threat scenarios that nuclear facility security systems are designed to address, was modified in 2003 and 2004 for DOE facilities housing Category I nuclear material, which includes HEU.110 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly evaluated the security of weapon-grade nuclear material at five DOE sites: Savannah River, Hanford, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Argonne West National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A 2005 GAO study found the five facilities studied “generally meet existing DOE readiness requirements,” although it also cited “weaknesses at ESE [DOE's Office of the Under Secretary for Energy, Science, and Environment] sites that could adversely affect the ability of ESE responsive forces to defend their sites.”111 A 2008 study noted DOE's progress, stating that it has “used the DBT to develop security and emergency response requirements for its reactors, which also benefit from national laboratories’ enhanced security.”112

The Y-12 National Security Complex—the storage site for the naval HEU stockpile and the main storage site for civilian HEU—provides a vivid example of tightened DOE security measures. For example, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials tout improvements in Y-12's physical protection measures, detection systems, and cyber security.113 In addition, a new, state-of-the-art facility is under construction at Y-12. Intended to consolidate most of the civilian HEU holdings now housed throughout the complex, as well as accept HEU from other U.S. sites and repatriated U.S.-origin HEU, the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) is a “reinforced concrete structure” with “designed in” security features. It is scheduled to be completed in August 2008.114

These improvements stand in contrast to security levels at civilian research reactors that use HEU fuel. University research reactors are particularly at risk because they are located on easily accessible university campuses, making it difficult to implement many common security measures—especially those that isolate the reactor from its surroundings and make it difficult for terrorists to approach the building housing the reactor. A January 2008 GAO report that examined security procedures at university research reactors noted that, “despite recent security improvements, NRC's security and emergency response requirements may not sufficiently address the potential consequences of an attack.”115 The difficulty, time, and expense of implementing such measures underscore the need to convert these facilities and transfer their HEU to Y-12.

As for military material, transferring it to the HEUMF as soon as possible will also greatly improve safety and security. Over the long term, however, downblending this material from HEU into LEU ensures even greater security. In addition to making the material unusable for weapons purposes, it sends a message to the rest of the world that the United States is serious about eliminating HEU. When Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman stated in a November 2005 speech that an additional 200 MT of U.S. HEU would be declared excess to military requirements, reducing the military stockpile and increasing its civilian counterpart, nonproliferation experts were initially thrilled. However, the details that followed later in the speech clarified that 160 MT of the material would be designated for use in naval propulsion reactors, while 20 MT would be downblended into LEU fuel and 20 MT slated for use in research and space reactors.116 Naval propulsion is a military, not civilian, use of HEU, so following the changes declared by Bodman, the U.S. stockpile had approximately 378 MT of military HEU, 166 MT of HEU declared excess to military programs, 100 MT of spent naval fuel, and approximately 10 MT of civilian HEU.117 Removing material from weapons use is laudable, but retaining most of it for other military uses severely blunted the impact of the announcement.118 Furthermore, had the DOE or State Department consulted with Moscow before the 2005 announcement, it is quite possible that Russia too might have declared additional HEU excess to military needs.119 Perhaps in the future, when the “excess” material, a significant proportion of which is still in assembled nuclear weapons, is downblended to LEU, an announcement to this effect could be used to promote HEU minimization. Further declarations of excess material would also be helpful in this regard.

Burr Amendment Weakens Domestic HEU Export Controls

The actions taken after 9/11 to accelerate HEU minimization were partially derailed by a 2005 change in U.S. HEU export requirements. As discussed above, the United States has been the world's largest supplier of HEU, and its export requirements have had a direct effect on the actions of HEU users. The 1992 Schumer Amendment played a critical role in persuading facilities to cooperate with RERTR conversion programs. However, in 2005 Congress altered Schumer on behalf of medical isotope producers in Canada and Europe by adopting the Burr Amendment as part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act.120 Some in Congress were unjustifiably worried that the Schumer Amendment could have endangered supplies of Tc-99m to the United States, the largest consumer of this important radiopharmaceutical. Yet the Burr Amendment made it easier for Canadian and Western European Mo-99 manufacturers to continue using HEU to produce medical isotopes without cooperating fully with programs like RERTR to work toward conversion, thereby dealing a serious setback to U.S. efforts to promote HEU minimization initiatives under GTRI and calling into question the U.S. political commitment to the efforts.121

HEU plays a major role in the production of radioactive isotopes for medical applications. There are four major international radioisotope producers that use HEU: MDS Nordion (Canada), Covidien (Netherlands), Institut National des Radioéléments (IRE, Belgium), and the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA). In the past, all four have resisted efforts to convert to LEU, citing concerns about cost and disruption of production.122 While NECSA and the operator of the Dutch reactor that irradiates isotopes for Covidien and IRE have recently begun to warm to the idea of conversion, MDS Nordion and IRE leadership, while not against conversion in the distant future if paid for by others, have fought a requirement to convert.

The Schumer Amendment only required producers to convert from the use of HEU “when technically and economically feasible.” Though production was in no way endangered by this legislation, Mo-99 producers chafed at the requirement. Beginning in 2003, Nordion reportedly began to lobby members of Congress to enact an exemption to the Schumer Amendment that would allow HEU exports for medical isotope production, regardless of whether or not a producer agreed to convert to LEU. Lobbyists argued that a new amendment was needed because of possible isotope shortages in U.S. hospitals, but in fact it is the overwhelming reliance on a single reactor for U.S. isotopes that endangers U.S. patients (as discussed in more detail in the article by Cristina Hansell in the special section in this issue). Burr, the sponsor of the proposed legislation to loosen HEU export controls, received large campaign contributions from Nordion's allies in the United States, who also wrote the text of the legislation.123 While the first attempt to pass this legislation failed in 2003, a subsequent effort in 2005 succeeded. By permitting medical isotope producers to import U.S. HEU Belgium, France, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, U.S. law removed a key incentive for the facilities to convert to LEU.124

More positively, the 2005 act required the secretary of energy to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study on the feasibility and cost of converting medical isotope production to LEU. The study report is expected to be issued in October 2008 and will examine the following issues: the feasibility of industrial-scale LEU production of medical isotopes; market demand, including future demand, for Tc-99m; the progress of LEU development efforts; and the cost of conversion.125 After this study, the Energy Secretary is mandated to report to Congress on whether any producers are prepared to supply the U.S. market with LEU-produced isotopes. If production is feasible but not taking place, DOE is to investigate domestic non-HEU isotope production. Additionally, if U.S. requirements for medical isotopes can be met without using HEU, then HEU exports for this purpose are to be suspended.

The Bush administration, while calling for the international elimination of civilian use of HEU, did not use its political clout inside Congress to actively oppose the Burr Amendment and the relaxation of HEU export controls. Congressional staffers seeking support in efforts to block the Burr Amendment were told that the White House was not taking an official position on it.126 Only one career official from DOE issued a statement regarding the issue, even though members of Congress opposed to the legislation had asked DOE for an official statement of the administration's position.127 While this reluctance might have reflected an administration calculation that the changes to U.S. HEU export controls were not significant enough to justify the political price of blocking them, it also signaled an unwillingness to pay any significant domestic political cost to achieve the objective of eliminating civilian use of HEU. As it turned out, Burr destroyed efforts to obtain consensus among Mo-99-producing countries on how to proceed toward conversion, resulted in the shelving of work to draft international HEU guidelines, and made it more difficult to persuade countries to cooperate in HEU fuel take-back and reactor conversion efforts.

Lessons For the Road Ahead

The United States has had worldwide influence on the civilian use of HEU, from the spread of its use under Atoms for Peace to its gradual decline today. U.S. policies since the Truman administration have been central to the development of the normative treatment of civilian HEU. The initiation of the RERTR program in 1978 laid the practical foundations for global HEU minimization efforts. RERTR, despite frequent setbacks due to policy drifts, tensions in the U.S. bureaucracy, and funding cuts, has without question been the main driver behind efforts to reduce HEU in civilian use worldwide.128

U.S. initiatives have created a strong foundation for a norm against the use of civilian HEU. Obtaining high-level attention and domestic political consensus were critical to advancing the three-decade long U.S. effort to reduce the use of the material.129 Alongside the efforts of the Carter and Clinton administrations, the 1986 NRC requirement, the 1992 Schumer Amendment, and U.S. funding of HEU reduction programs at home and abroad have been laudable. Most recently, the Bush administration has shown creativity and at times exemplary leadership on civilian HEU minimization by raising the profile of the issue in consolidating various efforts under the GTRI umbrella. While HEU minimization is no longer a “political football” in the U.S. bureaucracy, congressional attention to the issue has drifted. Lawmakers largely acted as RERTR's defenders in the 1980s and 1990s, but the program's momentum was stalled by the unhindered passage of the Burr Amendment in 2005. Burr not only halted U.S. efforts at promoting HEU guidelines, but also put a damper on U.S. leadership by bringing into question whether U.S. policy on the elimination of civilian HEU was comprehensive and consistent.

Technical efforts have been increasingly systematic and now include cooperation with research institutes and fuel fabricators around the world, but unfortunately GTRI leadership has not had the clout to systematize conversion and fuel take-back projects and has had no leverage to promote reactor shutdown. Although the expansion of U.S. efforts to include RERTR cooperation with Russia on research, HEU conversion outside Russia, and Soviet-origin fuel take-back is commendable, the high-level political commitment needed to persuade Moscow to convert its own facilities to LEU and consolidate its own HEU holdings has been absent. Without some significant policy changes, persuading additional facilities around the world to convert to LEU or remove their HEU materials is highly unlikely.

Washington can take several measures to help develop a global norm against HEU use to buttress the long-standing U.S. policy minimizing civilian use of HEU. These include: rescind the Burr Amendment; have top U.S. policy makers engage the leaders of key countries (Russia and Canada, in particular) to find out what it will take to persuade them to eliminate their domestic use of HEU; engage in international evaluations of the threats posed by HEU and develop new recommendations for securing and managing HEU; and share U.S. control over the GTRI programs with other nations and the IAEA as much as possible.130 In addition, the United States must consider declaring additional HEU excess to military needs in exchange for other countries’ deeper engagement in HEU reduction efforts, possibly offering to match their commitments.131 More immediately, the United States can also facilitate the formulation of new, creative measures and additional incentives for facility operators to engage with RERTR. The capabilities and ideas of commercial nuclear enterprises and NGOs should be harnessed toward this goal as well.

In the final analysis, the U.S. experience offers several important lessons that could assist in further globalizing HEU minimization and its eventual elimination. While technical obstacles to conversion can be overcome with time and a coordinated scientific effort, ultimate success of HEU reduction efforts requires a determined political focus. This has to a large extent been achieved on the domestic level within the United States, though bringing all actors on board has been a challenge. The U.S. success in building consensus must now be applied on the international level. Globalizing civilian HEU minimization will require the attention of top policy makers worldwide; scientific communities, individual reactor operators, and bureaucracies will come on board if they know political leaders are serious. To ensure that the risks posed by HEU are eliminated, the United States must strengthen and formalize its political commitment and continue to exercise leadership by example.

Acknowledgements

Scott Parrish contributed to earlier versions of this article while he was a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The authors would like to thank Laura Holgate of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Jim Matos of Argonne National Laboratory, Parrish Staples of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, Allan S. Krass and Ellie Busick, both formerly of the State Department, as well as other current and former U.S. government officials for their helpful comments in the preparation of this paper. Any errors are the responsibility of the authors alone.

Notes

1. Jim Matos, Argonne National Laboratory, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

2. See Leonard Weiss, “Atoms for Peace,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59 (November 2003), pp. 34–41, 44. The importance of Atoms for Peace in the emergence of a normative framework is detailed in Lawrence Scheinman, “Shadow and Substance: Securing the Future of Atoms for Peace,” IAEA Bulletin 45 (December 2003), pp. 7–9, <www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull452/article3.pdf>.

3. Albert Wohlstetter et al., Moving toward Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd?, report to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Los Angeles: Pan Heuristics, 1976); and Albert Wohlstetter et al., Swords from Plowshares: The Military Potential of Civilian Nuclear Energy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

4. The high-level commitment to the civilian HEU minimization issue was provided by Jimmy Carter, “Nuclear Power Policy: Statement on Decisions Reached Following a Review,” April 7, 1977, cited in American Presidency Project, <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=7316>. Jim Matos, Argonne National Laboratory, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

5. Armando Travelli, R. Domagala, Jim Matos, J. Snelgrove, “Development and Transfer of Fuel Fabrication and Utilization Technology for Research Reactors,” paper presented at International Conference on Nuclear Technology Transfer, Buenos Aires, November 1, 1982. Several other countries, including Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, established similar programs in the 1970s while the IAEA provided a forum for cooperative technical research. In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union began replacing very highly enriched uranium fuels in research reactors outside of the Soviet Union with 36 percent enriched fuel. See the article by Elena Sokova in the special section in this issue.

6. With some of the most technically challenging reactor conversions in the United States, at facilities like M.I.T. and Oak Ridge, the U.S. promise to convert all reactors by 2014 should be particularly meaningful to international parties.

7. See Weiss, “Atoms for Peace.”

8. On the Baruch plan, see Randy Rydell, “Going for Baruch: The Nuclear Plan That Refused to Go Away,” Arms Control Today 36 (June 2006), pp. 45–48. On crafting the McMahon Act, as Weiss explains in “Atoms for Peace,” the McMahon Act “made secrecy and the non-sharing of nuclear information official U.S. policy . … The law was crafted to keep the U.S. nuclear monopoly intact and to give the United States an edge in the development of nuclear technology by denying it to others.” Also see Nuclear Power in an Age of Uncertainty (Washington, DC: Office of Technology Assessment, 1984), OTA-E-216, p. 144.

9. Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act), Public Law 585, 79th Cong.

10. Jim Matos, Argonne National Laboratory, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

11. The act also detailed the export licensing process and congressional review of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. For more information, see Weiss and Nuclear Power in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 144.

12. Information on early history of U.S. nuclear fuel exports from Jim Matos, Argonne National Laboratory, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

13. Jim Matos, Argonne National Laboratory, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

14. Comment by Marin Ciocanescu, Institute for Nuclear Research, Arges, Romania, at the Technical Workshop on HEU Minimization, Oslo, Norway, June 17, 2006. Romania's TRIGA reactor was the most powerful TRIGA ever built.

15. Albert Wohlstetter, The Spread of Nuclear Bombs, report to the Energy Research and Development Administration (Los Angeles: Pan Heuristics, 1976), p. 10.

16. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, A Historical Report on the United States Highly Enriched Uranium Production, Acquisition, and Utilization Activities from 1945 through September 30, 1996 (Washington, DC: Department of Energy, 2001), p. 96. See also Steven Aftergood and Frank N. von Hippel, “The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration: Transparency Deferred but not Denied,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (March 2007), pp. 149–161.

17. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 100.

18. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 98.

19. Sam Roe, “An Atomic Threat Made in America,” Chicago Tribune, January 28, 2007, p. 1.

20. Former State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell, March 5, 2008.

21. Former State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell, March 5, 2008.

22. Representatives of the newly established (RERTR) program also took part in the discussions of INFCE Group 8, on the feasibility of operating research reactors with LEU fuel. Armando Travelli, “Status and Progress of the RERTR Program in the Year 2004,” paper presented at International Conference on Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors, Vienna, Austria, November 7–12, 2004, <www.rertr.anl.gov/RERTR26/pdf/03-Travelli.pdf>; IAEA, “Advanced Fuel Cycle and Reactor Concepts” (Report of INFCE Working Group 8), Vienna, STI/PUB/534, 1980, p. 43.

23. “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Fact Sheet on the Proposed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy Act of 1977,” April 27, 1977, American Presidency Project, <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=7409>.

24. For example, NECSA would not have cooperated until it knew that Nuclear Research & consultancy Group (NRG) was converting a similar reactor, the High Flux Reactor, that it operates at Petten, in the Netherlands. Both reactors converted in the past few years. E-mail correspondence with former ACDA and State Department official, March 28, 2008.

25. Former State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell, March 5, 2008.

26. Paul Leventhal and Alan Kuperman, “RERTR at the Crossroads: Success or Demise?” paper presented to the RERTR 1995 International Meeting, Paris, France, September 18, 1995, <www.nci.org/s/sp91895.htm>.

27. Stephanie Cooke, “Reagan Administration Tries to Renege on U.S. Commitments to LEU Development,” NuclearFuel, March 2, 1981, p. 5; “NRC Pleads to Keep Up DOE's LEU Program,” NuclearFuel, May 25, 1981, p. 4.

28. Code of Federal Regulations, “Limitations on the Use of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in Domestic Non-Power Reactors,” Title 10, Part 50, Section 64 (51 FR 6519), February 25, 1986.

29. Christine Hudgins, “DOE Asks Other Agencies for Funds for RERTR Effort,” NuclearFuel, June 4, 1984, p. 17.

30. “DOE Plumps for Gradual Conversion of U.S. Research Reactors to LEU,” NuclearFuel, January 2, 1984, p. 13; Dave Airozo, “Nonproliferation Group Seeking Rule on Conversion of DOE Reactors,” NuclearFuel, August 10, 1987, p. 13.

31. This contradiction was understood in the United States at the time. See, for example: Daniel Charles, “DOE Undermines Own Nonproliferation Effort: The Department is Trying to Persuade Other Countries to Move away from Highly Enriched Uranium in Research Reactors but Is Planning a Reactor of Its Own that Will Use the Material,” Science 238 (November 27, 1987), p. 1224.

32. Former ACDA and State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell and Anya Loukianova, March 7, 2008. Dave Airozo, “DOE Funding May be Swan Song for Reduced Enrichment Effort,” NuclearFuel, January 23, 1989, p. 12.

33. Dave Airozo, “Embattled RERTR Program Faces Funding Woes, New HEU Reactor,” NuclearFuel, November 30, 1987, p. 16.

34. Dave Airozo, “Embattled RERTR Program Faces Funding Woes, New HEU Reactor,” NuclearFuel, November 30, 1987, p. 16.

35. Dave Airozo, “ACDA Says it Plans to Phase Out HEU Reactor Conversion Program,” NuclearFuel, June 27, 1988, p. 11. Throughout the 1980s, stories in Platts publications, such as NuclearFuel, described RERTR as “an unwanted stepchild” when the program was given the “cold shoulder” in the interagency process, “Lazarus-like” when it barely survived budget cuts.

36. Dave Airozo, “Senate Committee Okays $1.3 Million for DOE Reduced Enrichment Program,” NuclearFuel, July 23, 1990, p. 12.

37. See statement by Senator Tim Wirth, Democrat of Colorado, in Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 1992, HR 2427, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 137 (July 10, 1991): S 9442.

38. Daniel Horner and Deborah J. Holland, “SDI No Answer to Nuclear Terrorism,” Washington Post, March 28, 1990, p. A23. For an excellent summary of RERTR's impact on U.S. HEU exports, see, Alan J. Kuperman, “Codifying the Phase-Out of Bomb Grade Fuel for Research Reactors,” in Paul Leventhal, Sharon Tanzer, and Steven Dolley, eds., Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, DC: Brassey's, 2002), pp. 251–260.

39. Former ACDA and State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell and Anya Loukianova, March 7, 2008.

40. In addition, in 1986, U.S. House members initiated and the Reagan administration signed into law the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act (Public Law 99–399), which directed the executive “to keep to a minimum the amount of weapons-grade nuclear material in international transit.”

41. The Nuclear Control Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other nonproliferation and environmental organizations promoted the program, as did Jack Edlow of the nuclear fuel shipping concern Edlow International. Former State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell, March 5, 2008. Also see, “Political Changes Warrant Revival of HEU Fuel Program, NCI Says,” NuclearFuel, March 19, 1990, p. 7; Edlow International Company, <www.edlow.com>.

42. Airozo, “Senate Committee Okays $1.3 Million for DOE Reduced Enrichment Program.”

43. See statement by Representative James Scheuer, Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 1991, HR 5019, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 136 (June 19, 1990): H 3748.

44. George F. Vandegrift, “RERTR/GTRI Mo-99 Technology-Development History,” unpublished paper, 2007. For an explanation of the production and uses of Tc-99m, as well as a history of conversion efforts, see the article by Cristina Hansell in the special section in this issue.

45. See Michael Knapik, “Renewal of Off-Site Fuels Policy Still Dogs Watkins in Last Days of His Watch,” NuclearFuel, November 23, 1992, p. 16.

46. Former State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell, March 5, 2008. Also see Argonne National Laboratory, Nuclear Engineering Division, RERTR, Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel, <www.rertr.anl.gov/FRRSNF.html>.

47. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 98.

48. “Non-Proliferation Efforts Bolstered,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, July 20, 1992.

49. David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 239. Wilson Dizard III, “Suspension of HEU Production Viewed Favorably by Friends, Foes of UEE Bill,” NuclearFuel, November 25, 1991. In 1994 Schumer also pushed to tighten control over retransfer of U.S.-origin HEU as part of the U.S.-Euratom agreement, see Kathleen Hart, “Lawmakers Want Tight Control Over HEU Transfers in U.S.-Euratom Accord,” NuclearFuel, August 29, 1994, p. 4.

50. HR 776, Comprehensive Nuclear Energy Act, Sec. 903, Restrictions on Nuclear Exports: Amendments to Chapter 11 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. 2151 et seq. For further information on the Schumer Amendment, see Alan J. Kuperman, “Bomb-Grade Bazaar: How Industry, Lobbyists, and Congress Weakened Export Controls on Highly Enriched Uranium,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 62 (March/April 2006), pp. 44–50.

51. 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. 146.

52. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 96.

53. Since 1989, the United States has exported HEU, or approved licenses to do so, to Belgium, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. See Alan J. Kuperman, “Codifying the Phase-Out of Bomb Grade Fuel for Research Reactors,” p. 252.

54. While the text of the directive is classified, see the White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: Nonproliferation and Export Control Policy,” September 27, 1993, <www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/w930927.htm>. Among other items, the policy stated that the United States will “seek to minimize the civil use of highly-enriched uranium.” Also see Mark Hibbs, “Fate of U.S. DOE LEU Program May Spell Future of FRM-2 Fuel,” NuclearFuel, July 4, 1994, p. 6. Hibbs reported that there were disagreements between administration officials on implementation of the HEU language in the directive.

55. For a discussion of the politics surrounding construction of the FRM-II, see the “Civilian HEU Reduction and Elimination Database, Germany Profile,” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, <www.nti.org/db/heu/germany.html>.

56. Studies on running the ANS LEU were launched in 1993. See C.D. West, “Studies of the Impact of Fuel Enrichment on the Performance of the Advanced Neutron Source Reactor,” and M.M. Bretscher et al., “Relative Performance Properties of the ORNL Advanced Neutron Source Reactor with Reduced Enrichment Fuels,” presentations at the RERTR 1994 International Meeting, Williamsburg, Virginia, September 18–23, 1994.

57. Former ACDA and State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell and Anya Loukianova, March 7, 2008.

58. The United States has also since been reluctant to voluntarily declare its HEU stockpile as part of its annual IAEA INFCIRC/549 declaration, which required declaration of plutonium holdings, while countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have chosen to do so. See table in Cristina Chuen, “Developing HEU Guidelines,” presentation at RERTR 2007 International Meeting, Prague, September 24, 2007.

59. The IAEA began applying safeguards to excess HEU in 1994. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 17. For an update, see Frank Munger, “International Inspections Coming to a Close at Y-12,” Knoxville News Sentinel, March 5, 2008.

60. For more information, see Steven Aftergood and Frank von Hippel, “The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration: Transparency Deferred but Not Denied,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (March 2007), p. 155.

61. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 2; Aftergood and von Hippel, “The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration,” p. 154.

62. From a proliferation point of view, the fresh fuel stocks present the greatest concern, since fresh HEU fuel is easily converted into the raw material that can be used to make an improvised nuclear explosive device. Spent fuel can be less of a proliferation risk, if it has been irradiated long enough to make it highly radioactive (“self-protecting”). Irradiation also “burns” up some of the U-235 that was originally present, reducing the enrichment level of spent HEU fuel, and making it less attractive to terrorists seeking raw material for an improvised nuclear device. However, critical assemblies and fast reactors often do not irradiate materials for very long; HEU used in these applications is sometimes considered akin to fresh fuel. Additionally, spent fuel loses its radioactivity over time. For more information on radiation barriers, see the article by Ole Reistad and Styrkaar Hustveit in the special section in this issue.

63. By 2007, the United States had downblended 87 MT of HEU. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2007: Second Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, p. 19, <www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/gfmr07.pdf>.

64. William C. Potter, “Project Sapphire: U.S.-Kazakhstani Cooperation for Nonproliferation,” in John M. Shields and William C. Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 345–362.

65. For details, see Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “Georgia: Operation Auburn Endeavor,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, <www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/georgia/auburn.htm>.

66. For a discussion of spent fuel return programs, and the difficulties in persuading countries to give up HEU, see the article by William C. Potter and Robert Nurick in the special section in this issue.

67. For a discussion of the Soviet program, as well as details on more recent U.S.-Russian efforts, see the article by Elena Sokova in the special section in this issue.

68. Armando Travelli, “Status of the U.S. RERTR Program,” presentation at the RERTR 1994 International Meeting, Williamsburg, Virginia, September 18–23, 1994, <www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/10119644-gnbRB6/webviewable/10119644.pdf>.

69. Leventhal and Kuperman, “RERTR at the Crossroads: Success or Demise?”

70. Ann MacLachlan, “Reactor Operators Ask Clinton for Help in Pushing RERTR Goals,” NuclearFuel, September 25, 1995, p. 8.

71. Michael Knapik and Elaine Hiruo, “DOE to Renew Accepting Spent Fuel from Non-US Research Reactors,” Nucleonics Week, May 16, 1996, p. 5. Also see Argonne National Laboratory, Nuclear Engineering Division, RERTR, Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel.

72. DOE, Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance, p. 96.

73. Former ACDA and State Department official, phone interview with Cristina Hansell and Anya Loukianova, March 7, 2008.

74. Armando Travelli, “Status and Progress of the RERTR Program in the Year 2002,” presentation at RERTR meeting, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, November 3–8, 2002, <www.rertr.anl.gov/Web2002/2003Web/FullPapers-PDF/Travelli.pdf>.

75. Joint Expert Group recommendation, as cited in Travelli, “Status and Progress of the RERTR Program in the Year 2002.”

76. Travelli, “Status and Progress of the RERTR Program in the Year 2002.”

77. For more information about the latter program, established in 2002 to facilitate the return of Soviet-origin spent fuel to Russia, see the article by Elena Sokova in the special section in this issue.

78. See William C. Potter, Djuro Miljanic, and Ivo Slaus, “Tito's Nuclear Legacy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 56 (March/April 2000), pp. 63–70; Philipp C. Bleek, “Project Vinca: Lessons for Securing Civil Nuclear Material Stockpiles,” Nonproliferation Review 10 (Fall-Winter 2003). Forty-eight kg of fresh fuel was finally removed from the site in 2002. In April 2008, the IAEA announced progress on plans to package and transport 8,000 spent fuel elements to Russia, where they will be reprocessed. See Staff Report, “EC Infuses Serbian Nuclear Relic Cleanup with Critical Donation: Additional $25 Million Needed to Complete Fuel Repatriation for Aging Reactor,” IAEA News Centre, April 15, 2008, <www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2008/ecserbia.html>.

79. GTRI was also expanded to include a focus on radiological materials.

80. GTRI also subsumed the U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction program, which had been established in 1997. Von Hippel and Glaser, “Reducing the Threat,” p. 7; DOE, “Department of Energy Launches New Global Threat Reduction Initiative,” May 26, 2005.

81. Travelli, “Status and Progress of the RERTR Program in the Year 2004.”

82. RERTR management (names withheld by request), interviews with Cristina Chuen at RERTR 2006 International Meeting, Cape Town, October 29–November 2, 2006; and at RERTR 2007 International Meeting, Prague, September 23–27, 2007.

83. White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Joint Statement by President Bush, President Fox, and Prime Minister Martin,” White House Press Release, March 23, 2005.

84. NNSA, “Research Reactor at University of Florida Has Been Converted,” October 18, 2006.

85. By fiscal 2007, GTRI was receiving $115 million. The Bush administration's funding request for GTRI for fiscal 2008 was approximately $119 million; however, Congress increased it to $195 million. See discussion in Daniel Horner, “Congress Provides $50 Million in FY-08 Funding for Fuel Bank,” Nuclear Fuel, January 14, 2008, p. 3.

86. Daniel Horner, “Conversion of Two US Reactors from HEU to LEU Completed,” NuclearFuel, November 6, 2006, p. 6; Jordi Roglans-Ribas, “U.S. Domestic Efforts to Convert Remaining Civilian HEU Research Reactors,” presentation at the Symposium on Minimization of HEU in the Civilian Sector, Oslo, Norway, June 17–20, 2006, p. 2; Ann MacLachlan, “Research Reactor Conversion Approaching Halfway Mark,” NuclearFuel, November 19, 2007, p. 8.

87. Roglans-Ribas, “U.S. Domestic Efforts,” pp. 10–11.

88. For a discussion of which reactors are included and which not, and for an argument for further expansion of the list, see the article by Ole Reistad and Styrkaar Hustveit in the special section in this issue. Roglans-Ribas, “U.S. Domestic Efforts to Convert Remaining Civilian HEU Research Reactors”; Christopher Landers, “Reactors Identified for Conversion: Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) Program,” paper presented at the RERTR 2005 International Meeting, Boston, November 6–10, 2005, p. 2; GAO, “DOE Needs to Take Action to Further Reduce the Use of Weapons-Useable Uranium in Civilian Research Reactors,” GAO-04-807, July 2004, pp. 7–9; Charles Ferguson and Todd C. Robinson, “An Analysis of the Technical and Political Dimensions of Highly Enriched Uranium Use in Civilian and Naval Sectors,” report for the Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 2006, p. 9.

89. NNSA, “Strategic Plan: Reducing Nuclear and Radiological Threats Worldwide,” January 2007, <nnsa.energy.gov/nuclear_nonproliferation/documents/GTRI_StrategicPlan.pdf >, pp. 6–7.

90. Parrish Staples and John Creasy, “The Conversion Program,” paper presented at the 2008 Research Reactor Fuel Management (RRFM) Conference, Hamburg, Germany, March 2–5, 2008, p. 1.

91. NNSA, “GTRI: More Than Three Years of Reducing Nuclear Threats,” September 2007.

92. Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007 (Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, and Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2007), p. 88.

93. C. Messick and J. Taylor, “Reactor Fuel Management (RRFM)—United States Foreign Research Reactor (FRR) Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Acceptance Program: 2008 Update,” presentation at the 2008 RRFM Conference, Hamburg, Germany, March 2–5, 2008.

94. NNSA, “GTRI: More That Three Years of Reducing Nuclear Threats.”

95. GAO, “DOE Needs to Consider Options to Accelerate the Return of Weapons-Useable Uranium from Other Countries to the United States and Russia,” GAO-05-57, November 2004, p. 8; Chuck Messick, “Global Threat Reduction Initiative: U.S. Nuclear Remove Program”; NNSA, “NNSA Removes All U.S.-Origin Highly Enriched Uranium Fuel from the Republic of Korea,” September 19, 2007.

96. See, “What's New,” Edlow International Company, <www.edlow.com/news.html>.

97. Andrew Bieniawski, “Where to Take HEU Minimization—The U.S. Perspective,” paper presented at the Symposium on Minimization of HEU in the Civilian Sector, Oslo, Norway, June 17–20, 2006.

98. NNSA, “Strategic Plan,” p. 10.

99. NNSA, “GTRI: More That Three Years of Reducing Nuclear Threats.”

100. Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 88–89.

101. Andrew Bieniawski, cited in Ann MacLachlan, “Fresh HEU from Russian Reactors Moves, but Spent Fuel Pace Slower,” NuclearFuel, November 19, 2007, p. 8.

102. For additional information, see Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Civilian HEU Reduction and Elimination,” <www.nti.org/db/heu/pastpresent.html#sovfuel>.

103. Ann MacLachlan, “Czech Spent HEU Fuel Shipped to Russia for Reprocessing,” NuclearFuel, December 17, 2007, p. 11.

104. Bieniawski, “Where to Take HEU Minimization.”

105. For a detailed analysis of the obstacles facing the removal of HEU materials from Ukraine and Belarus, see the article by William C. Potter and Robert Nurick in the special section in this issue.

106. On this point, see Philipp C. Bleek, “Global Cleanout: An Emerging Approach to the Civil Nuclear Material Threat,” Harvard University, Belfer Center for International Affairs, September 2004, p. 25. Recommendations to engage NGOs and commercial organizations have been further specified in Philipp Bleek and Laura Holgate, “Minimizing Civil Highly-Enriched Uranium Stocks by 2015: A Forward-Looking Assessment of U.S.-Russian Cooperation,” The Future of the Nuclear Security Environment in 2015: Proceedings of a Russian Academy of Sciences’-U.S. National Academies’ Workshop (forthcoming).

107. Andrew Bieniawski, “Global Threat Reduction Initiative,” presentation at the Global Initiative Technical Workshop on Anti-Nuclear Smuggling Assistance, September 6, 2007, <www.berr.gov.uk/files/file41328.ppt>.

108. Frank N. von Hippel, “Opportunities to Minimize Stocks of Nuclear-Explosive Materials,” presentation at the Green Cross/Rosatom “Nuclear National Dialogue on the Atom, Society, and Security,” Moscow, Russia, April 18–19, 2007.

109. This is in contrast to security levels at some civilian facilities. Government audits have repeatedly indicated that efforts to strengthen NRC regulations and implement security upgrades to university reactors have been insufficient.

110. While the details of the revised DBT are classified, it reportedly calls for facilities to be prepared against a larger, more well-organized terrorist threat than the pre-9/11 DBT. According to some sources, these facilities are now required to also be able to defend against a squad-sized force of sophisticated attackers with help from multiple insiders. The deadline for facilities to meet the revised 2004 DBT was 2008.

111. GAO, “Nuclear Security: Actions Needed by DOE to Improve Security of Weapons-Grade Material at Its Energy, Science, and Environment Sites,” GAO-05-934T, July 26, 2005, p. 1.

112. GAO, “Action May Be Needed to Reassess the Security of NRC-Licensed Research Reactors,” GAO-08-403, January 31, 2008, p. 12.

113. Ted Sherry, “Y-12 Is Essential to National Security,” presentation at East Tennessee Economic Council, June 24, 2007, <www.eteconline.org/images/Sherry_Presentation_2006.pdf>.

114. This new structure will replace Building 9705-5, a wood-frame warehouse built in 1944 during the Manhattan Project. “HEUMF—Increasing Nuclear Construction Rigor at Y-12,” Y-12 Report 4 (Spring 2007), <www.y12.doe.gov/news/report/toc.php?vn=4_1&xml=p06>; DOE/NNSA, “Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) Project,” 2006 Project Management Workshop, <management.energy.gov/06W_LLCan.ppt>; Ellen Rogers, “HEUMF Construction Starts Again this Week,” Oak Ridger, March 29, 2006.

115. GAO, “Action May Be Needed to Reassess the Security of NRC-Licensed Research Reactors,” p. 16.

116. DOE, “DOE to Remove 200 Metric Tons of Highly Enriched Uranium from U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile,” November 7, 2005.

117. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2007: Second Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, p. 19.

118. Author's conversations with attendees at the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference, where Bodman made his announcement, November 2005.

119. Suggestion made by Laura Holgate, Nuclear Threat Initiative, e-mail communication with Cristina Hansell, March 26, 2008.

120. See Kuperman, “Bomb-Grade Bazaar,” pp. 44–50.

121. For an overview of the discussions on obtaining an agreement to convert Mo-99 production, first among producers themselves and later among Mo-99 producing nations, see the article on isotopes by Cristina Hansell in the special section in this issue. The efforts to draft HEU guidelines are discussed in this issue's special section's concluding article by Cristina Hansell.

122. Alan J. Kuperman, “The Global Threat Reduction Initiative and Conversion of Isotope Production to LEU Targets,” paper presented at 2004 the RERTR International Meeting, Vienna, Austria, November 7–11, 2004, p. 3.

123. Kuperman, “Bomb-Grade Bazaar,” pp. 47–48.

124. Recipient countries are clearly listed in Section 630 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109–58). The law also opened a loophole allowing the possible export of U.S. HEU to the twenty-one member states of the European Union, since the U.S.-Euratom nuclear cooperation agreements allow nuclear material transferred to one Euratom state to be transferred to another without notification or permission. As the European Union expands into Eastern Europe, the list of states to which U.S. HEU might be exported will expand further.

125. .Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Public Law 109–58).

126. Daniel Horner, “Congress Alters HEU Export Law Amid Mixed Signals From DOE,” NuclearFuel, August 15, 2005, pp. 7–9.

127. Letter from Paul M. Longsworth, deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, DOE, to Kurt Gottfried, Union of Concerned Scientists, July 15, 2005, <www.nci.org/05nci/08/domenic04/DOELetter-July2005.gif>.

128. Though more actual reductions resulted from reactor shutdowns, the RERTR program and related policies that discouraged the construction of new facilities using HEU were critical in changing norms and causing HEU use to begin tapering off. See also: “Management of High Enriched Uranium: Status and Trends,” IAEA-TECDOC-1452, June 2005, p. 39, <www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1452_web.pdf>.

129. It is notable that once it became clear U.S. policy makers were serious about conversion, the managers of the most powerful and prestigious U.S. research reactors, such as those at M.I.T. and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, accepted the program and began working toward conversion.

130. For a discussion of the need for HEU Guidelines, new international security recommendations, and an IAEA mandate to pursue HEU minimization, see the discussion in the concluding article of the special section in this issue.

131. Matthew Bunn has recommended that the United States “at least double the total amount of its HEU declared excess to its military needs. Over time, the United States and Russia should reduce their HEU stockpiles to the minimum required to support the warhead stockpiles they will retain, along with a few decades’ supply for military reactors.” Matthew Bunn, “Reducing Excess Stockpiles: U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Disposition,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 5, 2003.