U.S.-German Cooperation in the Elimination of Excess Weapons Plutonium (1995) / Chapter Skim
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A. Executive Summary of the NAS Plutonium Study
A. Executive Summary of the NAS Plutonium Study
Pages 43-63
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From page 43... ...
We recommend that the United States and Russia pursue long-term plutonium disposition options that: ~ National Academy of Sciences, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium: Executive Summary (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1994~.
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From page 44... ...
Because plutonium in spent fuel or glass logs incorporating high-level wastes still entails a risk of weapons use, and because the barrier to such use diminishes with time as the radioactivity decays, consideration of further steps to reduce the long-term proliferation risks of such materials is disposition of weapons plutonium. This global effort should include continued consideration of more proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycles, including concepts that might offer a long-term option for nearly complete elimination of the world's plutonium stocks.
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From page 45... ...
because whatever economic value this plutonium might represent now or in the future is small by comparison to the security stakes. World Stocks of Fissile Materials The problem of management and disposition of excess weapons plutonium must be considered!
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From page 46... ...
Because of the more difficult technical and policy issues involved, this report focuses primarily on the disposition of plutonium rather than HEU. The International Environment The management and disposition of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons will take place within a complex international context that includes the arms reduction and nonproliferation regimes of which this problem is an element, the continuing crisis in the former Soviet Union, worldwide plans for civilian nuclear energy (particularly the use of separates!
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From page 47... ...
Those applied to civilian materials, even separated plutonium and HEU, are less stringent than those applied to nuclear weapons and fissile material in military stocks. Varying and lower standards may be justified in the case of spent fuel for the first decades outside the reactor, when its high radioactivity makes it difficult to steal or divert, but they are not justified in the case of separated civilian plutonium or HEU.
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From page 48... ...
But the amount of weapons plutonium likely to be surplus is small on the scale of global nuclear power use- the equivalent of only a few months of fuel for existing reactors and it is not essential to the future of civilian nuclear power. There is thus no reason that disposition of this weapons plutonium should drive decisions on the broader questions surrounding the future of nuclear power.
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From page 49... ...
The Russian government asserts that these reactors provide necessary heat and power to surrounding areas, and that the Ale} must be repro cessed for safety reasons. The United States has begun discussions with Russia about assistance in converting these reactors so that separated weapons plutonium is not generated, or in providing alternate power sources, but these discussions remain embryonic.
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From page 50... ...
Russia has requested, and the United States has agreed to provide, assistance in constructing a storage facility for excess fissile materials from weapons. We support construction of a facility designed to consolidate all these excess weapons materials, as this would facilitate security and international monitoring.
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From page 51... ...
A New Storage Regime The following measures constitute a regime for intermediate storage of surplus fissile materials that serves the objectives noted earlier with minimum disruption to the process of dismantlement and storage: 2.
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From page 52... ...
We believe that options for the long-term disposition of weapons plutonium should seek to meet a "spent die} stanciard"- that is, to make this plutonium roughly as inaccessible for weapons use as the much larger and growing quantity of plutonium that exists in spent fuel from commercial reactors. Options that left the plutonium more accessible than these existing stocks would mean that this
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From page 53... ...
The Spent Fuel Option Excess weapons plutonium could be used as fuel in reactors, transforming it into intensely radioactive spent fuel similar in most respects to the spent Ale} produced in commercial reactors today. This use could probably begin within approximately 10 years (paced by obtaining the necessary fuel fabrication capability and the needed approvals and licenses)
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From page 54... ...
If excess weapons plutonium from Russia or the United States were substituted for this material with an associated delay in separation of plutonium from civilian spent fuel, so that additional excess stocks of civilian plutonium did not build up as a result~isposition of 50 or even 100 tons of plutonium could be accomplished relatively rapidly (since the facilities required are already built and licensed, or schecluled to be) and with comparatively small net ad6&litional safeguards risks (since after the initial transport, all the facilities handling plutonium would have clone so in any case)
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From page 55... ...
In particular, the use of advanced reactors and fuels to achieve high plutonium consumption without reprocessing is not worthwhile, because the consumption fractions that can be achieved between 50 and 80 percent are not sufficient to greatly alter the security risks posed by the material remaining in the spent fuel. Development of acivancec!
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From page 56... ...
international agreements. Beyond the Spent Fuel Standard Long-term steps will be needed to reduce the proliferation risks posed by the entire global stock of plutonium, particularly as the radioactivity of spent Ale!
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The entire process must be carefully managed to provide adequate safeguards, security, and transparency; to obtain public ant! institutional approval, including licenses; and to allow adequate participation in the decision making by all affected parties, including the U.S.
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From page 58... ...
4. transparency of each side's nuclear weapons production complexes, including physical access to production facilities and production records for fissile materials; a monitored cutoff of production of HEU and plutonium for weapons if necessary, the United States should be willing to provide limited funding to assist Russia in the measures necessary to cut off plutonium production; and an agreement providing for perimeter portal monitoring of dismantlement facilities, counting warheads entering these facilities, and assaying the fissile material that leaves.
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From page 59... ...
Disposition · It is important to begin now to build consensus on a road map for decisions concerning long-term disposition of excess weapons plutonium. Because disposition options will take decades to carry out, it is critical to develop options that can muster a sustainable consensus.
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From page 60... ...
· Disposition options should be designed to transform the weapons plutonium into a physical form that is at least as inaccessible for weapons use as the much larger and growing stock of plutonium that exists in spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors. The costs, complexities, risks, and delays of going further than this "spent fuel standard" to eliminate the excess weapons plutonium completely or nearly so would not be justified unless the same approach were to be taken with the global stock of civilian plutonium.
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From page 61... ...
Total Plutonium Inventories · Although we did not conduct a comprehensive examination of the proliferation risks of civilian nuclear fuel cycles, which would have gone beyond our charge, the risks posed by all forms of plutonium must be addressed. · While the spent fuel standarcl is an appropriate goal for next steps, further steps should be taken to reduce the proliferation risks posed by aR of the worId's plutonium stocks, military and civilian, separated and unseparated; the need for such steps exists already, and will increase with time.
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From page 62... ...
national oversight of security and safeguards, with a strengthened basis in law (in Russia, this would involve strengthening the role of GOSATOMNADZOR, while in other former Soviet states it would involve strengthening or creating comparable organi zations) ; consolidation of fissile material storage and handling where possible; conversion of research reactors to run on low-enriched uranium fuels, reducing the num ber of sites where weapons-grade fissile materials are used; greater Western participation and cooperation in safeguards and security, ideally at all fissile material sites, but at a minimum at all civilian sites; anti S
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From page 63... ...
agree on cooperative international approaches to manage reprocessing and use of plutonium to avoid building up excess stocks.
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