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The weapons-to-power nuclear argument | knoxnews.com
There's been a lot of megatons-to-megawatts activity in recent years, but some folks aren't too sure if that's going to continue to be a big factor in the downsizing of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Of course, a lot of folks are skeptical, period, about a nuclear renaissance.
Darrel Kohlhorst isn't one of them. I've had a couple of opportunities in recent weeks to talk to the general manager at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. During a conversation at a hearing for Y-12's Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement, he offered some views on nuclear power.
Here's what he said:
Russia looks beyond U.S. to conquer uranium markets | Reuters
* Russian supplies to keep filling global supply gap
* Russia seeks lucrative direct deals with U.S. firms
* Eyes China, India and other markets
* Uranium mines to expand production
By Robin Paxton
MOSCOW, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Nearly one in 10 U.S. households runs on power from Soviet nuclear bombs.
Now Russia hopes its Cold War arsenal, twinned with fast-growing uranium mines and enrichment capacity, will also be powering China, India and other booming economies when a 20-year nuclear fuel pact with the United States expires in 2013.
Russia has expressed no desire to refresh the 'Megatons to Megawatts' programme, under which it will recycle the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads and create enough uranium to power the entire United States for two years.
'Lost' uranium found in Dounreay clean-up - Scotsman.com News
NUCLEAR weapons-grade uranium, given up for lost at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, has been found during the clean-up at the sprawling site, it has been revealed.
A team of specialists found 1.5kg of the highly radioactive material over the past year during an operation to repackage waste at the site.
Some of the material was found in drums filled with waste and other small particles were found in the "nooks and crannies" of previously inaccessible equipment.
Three years ago, an official government report revealed that 238g of highly enriched uranium – the material used to make nuclear weapons – was unaccounted for at the Caithness nuclear facility.
Munger: Loading of uranium fortress may begin in mid-February » Knoxville News Sentinel
Loading of the government's new storehouse for bomb-grade uranium is expected to begin in mid-February, according to the latest projections.
Construction of the $549 million Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility was essentially completed in late 2008, and since then, workers have been installing equipment, applying finishing touches to the high-security structure and conducting test operations.
B&W Technical Services, the managing contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, recently completed its "operational readiness review" and is resolving some of the issues that were identified during that review, B&W spokesman David Keim said.
Tri-Valley CAREs - Citizen's Watch Newsletter - June/July, 2009
The government has removed 2/3 of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Livermore Lab, according to a recent Dept. of Energy press release. Tom D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, called it "real progress." We give it a more mixed review.
For starters, the DOE does not plan to complete the removal of these bomb-making materials from Livermore Lab until the end of 2012, three years from now.
We have called for their removal by 2010. Livermore Lab is vulnerable every day to a catastrophic release of these materials in the event of an earthquake or terrorist attack. The nearest fault zone lies less than 200 feet from the Lab.
Nuclear Engineering International: NNSA converts two US research reactors from HEU to LEU
The University of Wisconsin Research Reactor and Neutron Radiography Reactor at INL have been converted from the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has now converted or verified the shutdown of a total of 67 HEU research reactors around the world.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in cooperation with Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the University of Wisconsin, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy recently completed the conversion of the two research reactors through NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI).
Gone: enough HEU for 15,000 weapons| knoxnews.com
NNSA and USEC announced the same milestone in very different ways today, both saying 375 metric tons of Russia's highly enriched had been eliminated under the nonproliferation program that was initiated in 1993.
The program, sometimes referenced as Metagons to Megawatts, has converted the weapons-grade material -- enough to reportedly make 15,000 nuclear weapons -- to a low-enriched material of use for nuclear reactor fuel. The milestone is 75 percent of the 500 metric tons targeted for elimination by 2013.
In a statement, NNSA Administrator Tom D'Agostino said, "The continued success of this important bilateral agreement demonstrates the enduring U.S.-Russian commitment to the safe and irreversible elimination of excess fissile materials, as recently reaffirmed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in Moscow. This milestone puts us one step closer to accomplishing the President's goal of securing or eliminating weapons-usable nuclear materials worldwide."
USEC, which purchases the low-enriched material as part of the program and supplies it to customers, said it had paid the Russian Federatlon more than $5.6 billion since 1995.
Associated Press: Romanian uranium taken to secure site
The last remaining bomb-grade uranium has been shipped out of Romania as part of a U.S.-Russian nuclear nonproliferation program, the Energy Department reported Tuesday.
Officials at the department's National Nuclear Security Administration said the highly enriched uranium was taken from two research reactors in Romania and flown to Russia for secure storage. The shipment weighed 118 pounds.
Russia had provided the uranium years ago. The NNSA, working with Romanian officials, moved all the highly enriched uranium, or HEU, of U.S. origin, out of Romania in 2008.
The effort in Romania is part of a broader program to return all of the HEU that had been provided to various countries by either the former Soviet Union or by the United States for civilian nuclear research back to the originating countries where the material can be kept in more secure locations.
Uranium loading at Y-12 facility predicted for March 2010 | Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com
According to the latest info from the National Nuclear Security Administration's office in Oak Ridge, the initial loading of highly enriched uranium into Y-12's new high-security storage facility is planned for March 2010.
Federal spokesman Steven Wyatt said that work would begin "following authorization to startup." But there's a lot of work that remains to be done before the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility is ready -- even though construction of the $549 million fortress was essentially completed in September 2008.
FR: Executive Order: Proliferation danger from Russian HEU
Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to the Risk of Nuclear Proliferation Created by the Accumulation of Weapons-Useable Fissile Material in the Territory of the Russian Federation Presidential Title 3-- The President
[[Page 29391]] Notice of June 18, 2009 Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to the Risk of Nuclear Proliferation Created by the Accumulation of Weapons-Useable Fissile Material in the Territory of the Russian Federation
SRS receives 32 pounds of highly enriched uranium from Australia | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
The Savannah River Site has become the home of an Australian import that is a lot less cute than a kangaroo or koala.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday that the Savannah River Site will be the new home for 32 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in spent nuclear fuel from Australia.
The HEU spent fuel was transported by truck, rail and ship under secure conditions with the cooperation of Australia and several international organizations. With the completion of this shipment, NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative has successfully removed more than 220 pounds of U.S.-origin HEU fuel from Australia since 1998.
"The NNSA worked closely with Australia to oversee this important shipment of highly enriched uranium spent nuclear fuel," said NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Ken Baker. "The removal of this U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium from Australia is another major milestone in NNSA's cooperative effort to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and demonstrates the strong international commitment to nonproliferation."
USEC, Tenex to amend pricing methodology in US-Russia HEU pact
USEC and Techsnabexport, or Tenex, have agreed to amend the pricing methodology used for the final years of the US-Russia high-enriched uranium agreement, USEC said in a February 20 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. USEC estimated that under the new methodology, the total amount Russia receives under the 20-year contract, which expires at the end of 2013, "will substantially exceed $8 billion." In a filing a year ago, USEC said the contract allows adjustments to be made after 2007 to ensure that Tenex "receives at least approximately $7.6 billion." USEC also said, "We do not expect that any adjustments will be required." The contract covers the so-called SWU component of the low-enriched uranium produced from the downblending of HEU from Russian nuclear weapons. The amendment applies to deliveries in the years 2010-2013. The amendment must be approved by the US and Russian governments, USEC said. USEC and Tenex are their governments' executive agents for the HEU agreement.
U.S. top court rules for USEC on uranium imports | Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday for uranium enrichment company USEC Inc (USU.N) and the federal government in an anti-dumping case involving certain low-enriched uranium imports from France.
The high court's unanimous decision was a defeat for French nuclear energy producer Areva (CEPFi.PA), which had supplied the imported uranium at issue in the case.
Japan sent uranium to U.S. in secret | The Japan Times Online
Enough highly enriched U.S. uranium to make about 20 nuclear weapons was sneaked back to the United States from Japan over a 12-year period until last summer in a secret operation aimed at keeping it out of terrorists' hands, a senior U.S. official and Japanese specialists recently revealed.
The uranium, which was provided to Japan by the United States to build five nuclear nuclear research reactors, totaled more than 500 kg.
US high court eyes thorny issues in enriched-uranium import case
The US Supreme Court took its turn Tuesday in wrestling with the complexities of an eight-year-old case in which uranium supply company USEC and the US government argued that US antidumping duties should apply to low-enriched uranium exported to the US by French enricher Eurodif, a subsidiary of Areva. The critical issue in the case is whether uranium enrichment should be considered a good or a service. Under the antidumping law, goods are subject to the import duties but services are not. Part of the case's complexity comes from the unusual features of the nuclear fuel market. In most utility purchases of enriched uranium, the utility pays separately for the natural-uranium "feed" and the work by the enricher to raise the enrichment level of uranium-235 to the levels needed to fuel a nuclear power plant.
knoxnews.com |Thousands of containers of HEU ready for Y-12 move
According to an Oct. 3 report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, about 450 Rackable Can Storage Boxes were loaded by Y-12 workers during FY2007 and '08 to prepare for the move into the new Oak Ridge storage facility for weapons-grade uranium.
Based on previous information released by NNSA and B&W, the managing contractor, each of those boxes holds a half-dozen cans, and each of those cans holds up to 44 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The defense board memo said B&W plans to begin loading material into the new $549 million storage facility in fiscal year 2010.
The loading is to take place in two phases.
"The first phase is to de-inventory the Warehouse within about three months after start up
The Associated Press: Official describes secret uranium shipment
Enough processed uranium to make six nuclear weapons was secretly transported thousands of miles by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.
The shipment, conducted under tight secrecy and security, included a three-week trip by cargo ship through the Mediterranean, up the English Channel and the North Sea to Russia's Arctic seaport of Murmansk, the only port Russia allows for handling nuclear material.
The Center for Public Integrity | Front & Center News - How the Gores, Father and Son, Helped Their Patron Occidental Petroleum
Uranium Deal Helps Benefactors, but Costs Taxpayers $2.1 Billion
IN 1993, Vice President Gore boarded Air Force Two and flew to Moscow for meetings with Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin about the vitally important task of protecting nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the newly decentralized former Soviet Union. It was a natural mission for Gore; during his tenure in the Senate, he had become something of an expert in arms control agreements and, thanks to the patronage from Hammer, had already met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscow’s longtime ambassador to Washington.
Many defense experts consider Russia’s nuclear arsenal to pose the greatest immediate threat to U.S. security, of even greater concern than China’s alleged acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets. The Chinese will no doubt develop sophisticated warheads and the missiles to launch them over the next decade or two; the Russians already have them. The fear of loose nukes grew as economic conditions in the old Soviet republics deteriorated in the early 1990s. Gore’s mission was to reach an agreement with Russia on a way to manage all those weapons in a post-Cold War world.
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Uranium Deal Helps Benefactors, but Costs Taxpayers $2.1 Billion
IN 1993, Vice President Gore boarded Air Force Two and flew to Moscow for meetings with Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin about the vitally important task of protecting nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the newly decentralized former Soviet Union. It was a natural mission for Gore; during his tenure in the Senate, he had become something of an expert in arms control agreements and, thanks to the patronage from Hammer, had already met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscow’s longtime ambassador to Washington.
Many defense experts consider Russia’s nuclear arsenal to pose the greatest immediate threat to U.S. security, of even greater concern than China’s alleged acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets. The Chinese will no doubt develop sophisticated warheads and the missiles to launch them over the next decade or two; the Russians already have them. The fear of loose nukes grew as economic conditions in the old Soviet republics deteriorated in the early 1990s. Gore’s mission was to reach an agreement with Russia on a way to manage all those weapons in a post-Cold War world.
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Uranium Deal Helps Benefactors, but Costs Taxpayers $2.1 Billion
IN 1993, Vice President Gore boarded Air Force Two and flew to Moscow for meetings with Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin about the vitally important task of protecting nuclear weapons and nuclear material in the newly decentralized former Soviet Union. It was a natural mission for Gore; during his tenure in the Senate, he had become something of an expert in arms control agreements and, thanks to the patronage from Hammer, had already met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Moscow’s longtime ambassador to Washington.
New U.S. storage depot for the highly enriched uranium in nuclear weapons: Scientific American Blog
The "ultra-secure uranium warehouse of the future" in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is now built, if not quite ready for work. Part of Complex 2030—the Bush Administration's ambitious and semi-secret plan to revamp the nation's aging infrastructure for building nuclear weapons—the warehouse will provide one location for the nation's supply of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that makes for a powerful nuclear bomb.
NY pols seek end to uranium in U.S. labs -- Newsday.com
Two New York elected officials urged the federal government Tuesday to bar the use of highly enriched uranium in U.S. civilian research centers.
Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said such use by researchers _ mostly at universities _ could allow the material for nuclear bomb-making to fall into the wrong hands.
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