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The Spent-Fuel Standard for Disposition of Excess Weapon Plutonium Application to Current DOE Options (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Background
Pages 7-10

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From page 7...
... The CISAC findings, which were presented in reports issued in January 1994 and July 19954, included the following: Besides the dangers well known to be associated with arsenals of nuclear weapons, the existence of surplus separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEW) not embodied in nuclear weapons poses "a clear and present danger to national and international security." · This danger consists of three elements the risk that this material could be reincorporated into the nuclear arsenals of the states originally possessing it, the risk that it could be stolen for use in nuclear weapons constructed by other states or subnational groups, and the risk of impairment of nuclear-arms-control prospects by perceptions that the major weapons powers are retaining the material in directly weapons-usable form in order to keep open the option of reversing their post-Cold-War arms reductions.5 4CISAC, 1994 and CISAC, 1995.
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From page 8...
... 6The difficulties encountered in implementing the "HEU deal", under which 500 metric tons of Russian HEU is to be blended down and sold to the United States over a period of 20 years for resale in the world nuclear-fuel market, shows that what is easier in principle may still not be easy enough in practice. See, e.g., Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material, A Joint Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Harvard University, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000 and references therein.
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From page 9...
... 37-39; U.S.-Russian Independent Scientific Commission on Plutonium Disposition, Final Report, Washington, DC: Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States, September 1997 (available at http://ksgnotesl.harvard.edu/BCSIA/Library.nsf/atom) ; Department of Energy, Record of Decision for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Final Environmental Impact Statement, Washington, DC: Department of Energy, 4 January 2000; and Department of Energy, Surplus Plutonium Disposition Final Environmental Impact Statement (3 vols.
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From page 10...
... . The first issue has been settled, at least for the time being, by the recent U.S.-Russian Bilateral Plutonium Disposition Agreement, which specifies that each country will disposition 34 metric tons of excess military plutonium as follows: the United States will disposition 25.5 metric tons via the MOX route and 8.5 metric tons by immobilization, and Russia will disposition all 34 tons via the MOX route.
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Key Terms

  • separated plutonium
  • nuclear materials
  • spent fuel
  • weapons plutonium
  • highly enriched

  • enriched uranium
  • cisac findings
  • disposition final
  • excess weapons
  • destined ultimately

  • surplus nuclear
  • excess weapon
  • surplus plutonium
  • final environmental
  • impact statement

  • commercial nuclear
  • fuel destined
  • nuclear reactors
  • control assessment
  • fission products

  • weaponsusable fissile
  • allowing withdrawals
  • excess military
  • interim storage
  • plutonium comparable

  • reactor fuel
  • danger consists
  • arms control
  • third risk
  • safeguarded interim


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