HEU FUEL CYCLE INVENTORIES AND PROGRESS ON GLOBAL MINIMIZATION

In 2007, 334 nuclear reactors (including for naval propulsion) and isotope production facilities employed highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel or target material. One year of operations at these reactors and facilities required more than 3,100 kilograms (kg) of HEU for naval propulsion, more than 750 kg for research reactors, and 40?–50 kg for isotope production in civilian facilities—in addition to several tons used in other types of reactors. Material with high enrichment levels and low radiation barriers stored or handled in large batches, such as HEU target waste and certain types of fuel from isotope production, research reactors/critical assemblies, and naval fuel, presents serious safety and security concerns. Forty-eight civilian research reactors have converted to low-enriched uranium as a result of a three-decade international effort to minimize HEU use, resulting in a decrease in HEU consumption of 278 kg per year. This article's establishment of baseline measurements for assessing the results of HEU minimization efforts calls for additional focus on the scope and methodology of HEU minimization. Facility decommissioning and dismantling should play a larger role in the future HEU minimization effort, materials with specific weapons-relevant properties should be given higher priority compared to bulk HEU material, and the use of large quantities of weapon-grade HEU fuel for naval propulsion should be reconsidered.     

CONTRIBUTORS

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.     

NUCLEAR TERRORISM AND THE GLOBAL POLITICS OF CIVILIAN HEU ELIMINATION

An increasing number of countries recognize the special risks of nuclear terrorism associated with the civilian use and storage of and commerce in highly enriched uranium (HEU). They are especially concerned that non-state actors might gain access to HEU and use it to build and detonate improvised nuclear devices. The risk is aggravated by the very large global stocks of HEU, some of which are inadequately protected. Although HEU has few commercial uses, and most experts believe it is technically feasible to substitute low-enriched uranium for HEU in nearly all civilian applications, efforts to reduce HEU stocks have been impeded by a variety of economic, political, and strategic considerations. This article analyzes the nature of these impediments and discusses what is required to overcome them.     

Reflections on Transparency and Monitoring under the 1993 United States-Russian Federation Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement

ABSTRACT

The 1993 Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement between the United States and Russian Federation is often described as one of the world's most successful nuclear nonproliferation programs. In 2013, the two states achieved the agreement's major goals of downblending 500 metric tons of Russian weapon-origin HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) and delivering all resultant LEU to the United States. At one time, the LEU delivered under the agreement generated nearly 10 percent of all electricity in the United States. The agreement achieved its nonproliferation goals through a unique government/industry partnership. Commercial executive agents contracted for the annual sale and delivery of downblended LEU, while the US and Russian governments exercised reciprocal transparency monitoring measures to demonstrate that all LEU delivered under the agreement was derived from Russian weapons-origin HEU, and that the same LEU was used for exclusively peaceful purposes in the United States. The commercial development, negotiations, and implementation of the agreement have been well documented. This article describes the scope of US transparency monitoring activities in Russian HEU processing facilities, as well as Russian monitoring in the United States. In addition, it discusses the results of twenty years of reciprocal transparency monitoring and data analysis, and outlines lessons learned that are potentially applicable to future transparency monitoring and verification regimes and similar cooperative efforts.     

THE HARD CASES

Many countries received Soviet-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) for civilian nuclear research purposes. Because of inadequate nuclear security at a number of the research sites, U.S. policy has sought to remove or otherwise safely dispose of their HEU stocks as quickly as possible. Although the pace of HEU disposition has accelerated significantly in recent years, several sites have posed formidable technical, economic, and political challenges. This article identifies the major obstacles to HEU removal at two key installations—Kharkiv in Ukraine, and Sosny in Belarus—and recommends a strategy for overcoming these impediments. Key components for a successful disposition strategy include: treating these cases with the urgency they deserve, expanding potential compensation packages, explicitly addressing the institutional and political issues involved, engaging high-level political leaders, working with third parties, and promoting these efforts as part of a nondiscriminatory initiative to phase out HEU in the civilian nuclear sector globally.     

FACILITATING NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT: Verified Declarations of Fissile Material Stocks and Production

Unprecedented interest in seeking progress toward nuclear disarmament exists today; even some nuclear weapon states are looking for new ways to strengthen this process. National declarations of fissile material holdings—highly enriched uranium and plutonium—could play an important role in supporting this effort, facilitating not only transparency but also the irreversibility of the process. This article discusses what kind of content such declarations could have in order to be meaningful and effective, the sequence of data on fissile material holdings that states might release, and some of the challenges to be expected in reconstructing historic fissile material production; it also summarizes current attitudes of weapon states toward making such declarations. Initial declarations can be valuable as confidence-building measures, but better and more background data are necessary if declarations are to serve as the groundwork for deeper cuts in the nuclear arsenals. A robust verification approach would ultimately require inspectors to have access to fissile material production and storage sites. The methods and tools of nuclear forensic analysis—in this context also dubbed nuclear archaeology—would be a key element of this process. This article discusses the capabilities and limitations of potential approaches to verifying declarations of historic production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium; it also identifies and discusses opportunities for further research and development.     

Uranium yellowcake trafficking incidents in Africa

The perpetuation of an otherwise astute fissile material safeguards model by the current non-proliferation regime raises a number of concerns, not least the efficacy of the approach in reducing clandestine weapon developments and the nuclear terrorism threat. Mindful of potential shifts in illicit nuclear material and weapon acquisition, following an excessive focus on fissile material safeguards and the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology, this article uses proliferation trend and scenario analysis in a bid to identify potential proliferation threats and non-proliferation opportunities. The results of the article's assessment of reported incidents (1992–2013) involving theft, unauthorised possession, and attempts to smuggle or sell highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, low-enriched uranium (LEU), natural uranium and uranium yellowcake reveal a decline in occurrences involving fissile material but an increase in uranium yellowcake incidents, particularly in Africa. Presumptions that yellowcake may have provided the newest threat to clandestine weapon developments and nuclear terrorism wane amid concerns over possible biases in reporting, scepticism over an organised and demand-driven nuclear black market, and the difficulties of non-state actors’ development of crude nuclear weapons off the tedious yellowcake conversion-enrichment-fabrication pathway. To secure Africa's uranium yellowcake from potential proliferators, the article proposes concerted domestic, regional and multilateral non-proliferation efforts.     

The Trust Paradox in Nuclear Smuggling

ABSTRACT

This article explores the paradox of trust in the largest nuclear smuggling operation involving highly enriched uranium (HEU) discussed in open source literature. In the first effort to understand the type, extent, and role of trust in nuclear smuggling enterprises, it draws from literature on trust development in legitimate businesses as well as criminal enterprises. Observed behavioral patterns in this case challenge traditional notions of the internal dynamics of temporary groups engaged in nuclear smuggling and operational realities of such activities. The article seeks to explain why individuals agree (and continue) to operate in this high-risk environment, unbound by close personal ties, without any effort to verify the background, motives, or qualifications of the fellow conspirators. It offers ways to advance current nonproliferation efforts in non-state actor interdiction by exploiting the environment of shallow trust in temporary groups.     

NUCLEAR ISLANDS

Current International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards do not provide adequate protection against the diversion to military use of materials or technology from certain types of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. In view of highly enriched uranium's relatively greater ease of use as a nuclear explosive material than plutonium and the significant diseconomies of commercial spent fuel reprocessing, this article focuses on the need for improved international controls over uranium enrichment facilities as the proximate justification for creation of an International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Association (INFCA). In principle, the proposal is equally applicable to alleviating the proliferation concerns provoked by nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and other sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. The INFCA would provide significantly increased nonproliferation assurance to its member states and the wider international community by holding long-term leasehold contracts to operate secure restricted zones containing such sensitive nuclear facilities.     

REFASHIONING AUSTRALIA'S NUCLEAR BARGAIN?

This article explores the challenges that Australia faces in reconciling its commitments to nonproliferation and uranium exports during a time when the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is under major stress and the world uranium market is bullish. The “grand bargain” that has framed Australian participation in the nonproliferation regime and the nuclear fuel market since the 1970s was only tenable in an era of stagnant uranium demand and a stable nuclear balance. However, contemporary nuclear proliferation dynamics and the revival of interest in nuclear energy have accentuated the incompatibility between Australia's commitment to nonproliferation and the desire to profit from uranium exports. The contemporary international strategic environment, international nonproliferation regime, and nuclear energy market are characterized by developments that not only undermine the basis of Australia's grand bargain, but also present challenges and opportunities for the refashioning of Australian policy.     

INTERNATIONAL REGIME OF FRESH FUEL SUPPLY AND SPENT FUEL DISPOSAL

Recent events in Iran and elsewhere demand a reevaluation of the need for increasing nuclear fuel supplies and assuring reliable flow of fuel to nuclear power user states vis-à-vis the need for strengthened security for all countries against the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The right of countries to a guaranteed supply of nuclear energy for peaceful uses must be balanced with the global community's desire to limit flows of nuclear material and sensitive nuclear facilities that could create opportunities for nuclear proliferation. This article proposes elements of an international regime of fresh fuel supply and spent fuel disposal that will guarantee fresh fuel supplies to countries honoring their obligations under the Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while reducing concerns about diversion of spent fuel for weapons purposes. A specific application to countries with small pre-commercial uranium enrichment plants is also proposed.     

HOW THE UNITED STATES HELPED IRAN BUILD A LASER ENRICHMENT LABORATORY

In the spring of 1975, Iran became one of the first states to begin comprehensive research into using lasers for uranium isotope separation. As part of that research, the government sought the expertise of Jeff Eerkens, a leading American specialist in the field. This investigative article tells the story of their relationship: how it began, how it developed, and how it ended, drawing extensively from the authors' personal interviews with Eerkens as well as numerous publications and other interviews.     

EXTRAORDINARY VISITS

North Korea has the bomb but not much of a nuclear arsenal. For fifty years, it pursued the plutonium path to the bomb in parallel with its pursuit of nuclear electricity. My visits to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex provided a window to its plutonium capabilities. After having made six visits to North Korea, Pyongyang surprised me during my seventh visit last November by showing me a small, modern uranium enrichment plant, which I was told was needed for its new indigenous light water reactor program. However, the same capabilities can be used to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel. Following a pattern of having made poor risk-management decisions during much of the past twenty years of diplomacy dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat, Washington remains in a standoff with Pyongyang.     

Does Intent equal Capability? Al-Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The prospect of terrorists deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is often referred to as the foremost danger to American national security. This danger has become more realistic because of al-Qaeda's expanding global network and the expressed willingness to kill thousands of civilians. In the past four years, numerous media reports have documented the group's ongoing quest for WMD capabilities; many reports have detailed al-Qaeda members’ attempts to manufacture or obtain certain chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents to use in WMD against targets in the West and the Middle East. Yet the question remains: Does al-Qaeda's current WMD capability match its actual intent? While most studies of the group have focused on its explicit desire for WMD, allegations of CBRN acquisition, and the killing potential of specific CBRN agents, few open-source studies have closely examined the evolution of al-Qaeda's consideration of WMD and, most notably, the merit of actual CBRN production instructions as depicted and disseminated in the group's own literature and manuals. The following report will examine the history of al-Qaeda's interest in CBRN agents, the evolution of the network's attitude toward these weapons, and the internal debate within the organization concerning acquisition and use of WMD. More so, the following research will assess the validity of actual CBRN production instructions and capabilities as displayed and disseminated in al-Qaeda's own literature and websites.     

Terrorism,insurgency, kidnapping,and security in Africa's energy sector

Energy continues to serve as the bedrock of modern economies and the main driver of modern society. For Africa, the production and supply of energy resources such as crude oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, biomass, biofuels and other renewables are an important source of employment, rents, taxes, royalties and profits. This sector brings in several tens of billions of dollars of revenue annually. The production and delivery of such resources, however, depend on critical infrastructures such as pipelines, refineries, processing plants, terminals, rigs, electrical energy pylons, substations, pump stations, vessels, and tankers. These infrastructures have been attacked by terrorists, insurgents, vandals and saboteurs, all of whom see them as targets against which to register their grievances and extract concessions from the state. This paper is a chronological account of some of the documented incidents of terrorism, insurgency, kidnapping, destruction, sabotage, and human casualties suffered in the oil and gas sectors in Africa between 1999 and 2012. It is based on data extracted from the databases of the RAND Database of World Terrorism Incidents and the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database (GTD).     

CONTRIBUTORS

ABSTRACT

Narratives about Brazil's nuclear program are distorted by supporters and critics alike. In Brazil, the national nuclear infrastructure is undergoing a period of expansion, with plans to build new nuclear power plants and industrial-scale fuel production facilities. While Brazil's leaders herald the nuclear sector as a triumph for indigenous science and technology, foreigners view the nuclear program as a dangerous legacy of the military regime. This discrepancy becomes even more apparent in discussions about the ongoing construction of Brazil's first nuclear powered submarine. Brazil's military touts the submarine as a symbol of political status, economic growth, and military might. But from abroad, the military's involvement in nuclear development is considered unnecessary, worrisome, and even irresponsible. These narratives—often incomplete or selective—have polarized discussions about Brazil's nuclear submarine program and caused considerable political antagonism during safeguards negotiations. This article works to dispel myths, highlight legitimate concerns, and explain historical perspectives that shed light on some difficulties that can be anticipated in future negotiations.     

Phosphate Rocks and Nuclear Proliferation

Phosphate rocks are predominantly mined for fertilizer production. However, they also contain considerable amounts of accompanying natural uranium that can exceed concentrations found at commercial uranium mines. Extracting uranium from phosphate rocks during fertilizer production is a technically mature process; it was used on an industrial scale in the United States and elsewhere before decreasing uranium prices made this practice unprofitable in the 1990s. Soon, technical improvements, potentially rising uranium prices, and anticipated environmental regulations may make uranium extraction from phosphates profitable again in the United States and emerging phosphate rock mining centers in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Extracting uranium during phosphate fertilizer production is desirable in a way that otherwise lost resources are conserved and fertilizers with reduced radiotoxic heavy metal content are produced. Phosphate rocks have also been subject to clandestine uranium acquisition. In this work, the relevance of unconventional uranium resources from phosphate rocks is reviewed. A brief overview of the extraction process, a list of the required materials, and a very simple estimation of the amounts of uranium that could be extracted using a container-sized pilot plant which can be integrated into existing fertilizer plants is provided. Lastly, past known unreported uranium extraction activities from phosphate rocks are discussed.     

WHY IRAN WANTS THE BOMB AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR US POLICY

Understanding why the Iranian regime wants to possess nuclear weapons is essential to formulating the best policy to prevent (or perhaps to simply manage) the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran. Three general theories—realism, liberalism, and constructivism—provide a framework for looking at Iran's nuclear motivations. However, contrary to many analyses, the regime's desire to possess nuclear arms stems not from neorealist defensive concerns, but rather from offensive goals driven by domestic politics. The use of extremist Islamism by the Iranian regime to justify its autocratic rule is the primary motivating factor. Accordingly, the outlook for diplomatically addressing the Iranian regime's nuclear aspirations appears dim.     

Effective attacks in the salvo combat model: Salvo sizes and quantities of targets

This article considers two related questions of tactics in the context of the salvo model for naval missile combat. For a given set of targets, how many missiles should be fired to produce an effective attack? For a given available salvo size, how many enemy targets should be fired at? In the deterministic version of the model I derive a simple optimality relationship between the number of missiles to fire and the number of targets to engage. In the stochastic model I employ the expected loss inflicted and the probability of enemy elimination as the main performance measures and use these to derive salvo sizes that are in some sense “optimal.” I find that the offensive firepower needed for an effective attack depends not only on a target's total strength but also on the relative balance between its active defensive power and passive staying power. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Weakest‐link attacker‐defender games with multiple attack technologies

In this article, we examine a model of terrorism that focuses on the tradeoffs facing a terrorist organization that has two qualitatively different attack modes at its disposal. The terrorist organization's objective is to successfully attack at least one target. Success for the target government is defined as defending all targets from any and all attacks. In this context, we examine how terrorist entities strategically utilize an efficient but discrete attack technology — e.g., suicide attacks — when a more conventional mode of attack is available, and the optimal anti‐terrorism measures.© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012