Stemming russia’s plutonium tide: Cooperative efforts to convert military reactors

Nonproliferation Review

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 104-114

  Perry, Todd ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

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EID: 85010603054     PISSN: 10736700     EISSN: 17461766     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10736709708436670     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. The research for this report was supported by a USIP Peace Scholar Award. The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of Peace. The author also gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments made on early drafts of this article by Matthew Bunn, Zachary Davis, Frank Von Hippel, and U.S. and Russian governmental and nongovernmental officials who wish to remain anonymous.
2. For a description of these secret cities, see Oleg Bukharin, The Future of Russia’s Plutonium Cities (Princeton: Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Report #296, March 1996).
3. In theoiy, the aluminum-clad uranium metal fuel could be stored rather than reprocessed. But, the lack ofstorage space combined with limited abilities to control storage pond water chemistry has required Minatom to reprocess the spent reactor fuel generally within several months to a year after its removal from the reactors.
4. “Agreement Between The Government Of The United States and the Government Of The Russian Federation Concerning The Shutdown Of Plutonium Production Reactors And The Cessation Of Use Of Newly Produced Plutonium For Nuclear Weapons,” June 23, 1994, p. 2.
5. The amount of plutonium in spent fuel taken from the converted reactors will depend upon the uranium content of the new fuel rods, as well as the level and duration of fuel exposure in the reactors.
6. The plutonium in the fuel will contain heavy concentrations of plutonium-240, an element that complicates the construction of nuclear explosives due to high neutron emissions.
7. Core conversion would change the reactors’ physics, and make them less likely to catch fire in the event of a loss of reactor coolant. Core conversion would also allow the reactors to be run at reduced power levels, increasing the time for reactor operators to take corrective actions in an emergency situation. These and other safety upgrades have short-term benefits because when the reactors reach the end of their scheduled life spans by about the year 2010, other safety issues will arise.
8. For a complete discussion of the various fissile material cut-off proposals discussed during the Cold War, see Frans Berkhout, “Components of an International Plutonium Management Regime,” paper delivered to NATO Workshop on Global Stability Through Disarmament, Erice, Sicily, August 19-23, 1993.
9. The United States had ceased HEU production in 1964. Bukharin, The Future of Russia’s Plutonium Cities, p. 6.
10. The United States had shut-down its aging plutonium reactors in 1988. Berkhout, “Components of an International Plutonium Management Regime,” p. 10.
11. That same year, Russian officials had announced at the United Nations their intention to eventually end plutonium production. Bukharin, The Future of Russia’s Plutonium Cities, p. 6.
12. For a description of this impasse, see Tom Zamora Collina, “Report from Geneva: Test Ban, Fissile Material Talks Stall, NPT Heats Up,” Institute for Science and International Security, September 28, 1994, p. 4.
13. “Modification to the Amendment Offered by Mr. Markey of Massachusetts to H.R. 2401,” as reported (Amendment # 7 in House Report 102-236).
14. For a description of the history, and evolving objectives ofthis and related nonproliferation assistance programs, see Jason D. Ellis, “Nunn-Lugar’s MidLife Crisis,” Survival 39 (Spring 1997), pp. 5-29.
15. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Cooperative Threat Reduction Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, 103rd Congress, Second Session, April 28, 1994, Statement by Dr. Harold P. Smith, Jr., Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy).
16. Graham T. Allison, et al, Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996), p. 109, note 80.
17. This and subsequent references to the protocol are, taken from the “PostSoviet Nuclear Complex Monitor,” Vol. 1, Nos. 20 & 21, March 18, 1996, pp. 1-3. In this context, the phrase “military use of plutonium” refers only to that plutonium separated from spent fuel at the three reactors.
18. The protocol declares both sides’ intention to “Conclude an agreement on the means of confirming the plutonium and highly enriched uranium inventory from nuclear dismantlement.”
19. The protocol states that the United States commits to making “recommendations” to U.S. and multilateral financial institutions “to attract means of financing as soon as possible” for a Russian feasibility study on finishing a coal-fired facility already under construction at Krasnoyarsk.
20. Because the Russian economy is in desperate straits, local utilities charge customers only a fraction of the actual cost of their energy consumption. This poses a fundamental obstacle to obtaining loans from the World Bank or other multilateral lending agencies for replacement power plants. Mathew Wald, “Arms Plants Provide Civilians’ Power,” The New York Times, August 18, 1996, p. A10.
21. Mark Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” Master’s Thesis, University of California at Berkeley, December 1995, p. 14.
22. Constructing replacement nuclear power stations would have taken longer than constructing fossil fuel powered facilities that, in theory, could have been completed by the year 2000. “Nuclear Power Replacement Options Study for Seversk (Tomsk-7) and Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk-26): Technical Evaluation Report,” Prepared by Joint U.SVRussian Study Team for the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the Russian Federation Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom), December 1995 (hereafter “Nuclear Power Replacement Options Study”).
23. “Core Conversion Highlights/Issues,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, October 7, 1996, p. 6.
24. “Nuclear Power Replacement Options Study,” Table 1-1.
25. Wald, “Arms Plants Provide Civilians’ Power,” p. A10
26. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 23.
27. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 43.
28. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors, p. 23, 42, 53-55.
29. Bukharin, The Future of Russia’s Plutonium Cities, p. 13.
30. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 33.
31. For a description of the relationship between GAN and the MPC&A program, see Jessica E. Stern, “U.S. Assistance Programs for Improving MPC&A in the Former Soviet Union,” The Nonproliferation Review 3 (Winter 1996), p.26 p. 28.
32. For a discussion ofthe Intergovernmental Agreement, see Nuclear Successor States ofthe Soviet Union: Nuclear Weapon andSensitive Export Status Report (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, May 1996), p. 24.
33. U.S. officials had hoped to use access to reactor fuel reprocessing facilities as a precedent for a future fissile material production ban agreement, but Russia refused in these negotiations to grant such access. Records of reactor operations combined with measurements of the isotopic content of the separated plutonium can instead be used to assure that materials are not diverted during reprocessing.
34. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 15.
35. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,”., p. 21.
36. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 43.
37. Bukharin, The Future of Russia’s Plutonium Cities, pp. 6-7.
38. Allison, et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy, p. 110. After Russia’s October 1994 announcement that it would no longer transform extracted plutonium from an oxide to a metal form, there was a certain ambiguity surrounding the exact status of the reactor plutonium. In the Russian view, it was no longer categorized as weapons plutonium. But both sides recognized that the oxide was weapons-usable. The summit language therefore ’explicitly mentioned “newly produced” fissile material in direct reference to the plutonium being extracted from spent fuel at the three reactors.
39. This funding was provided by the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology ($3.7 million) and by the State Department’s NonProliferation and Disarmament Fund ($1.2 million)
40. For a summary of the principle objectives of the core conversion study see “Core Conversion Highlights/Issues.”
41. Stern, “U.S. Assistance Programs for Improving MPC&A in the Former Soviet Union,” p. 28.
42. An estimated three tons of HEU per year will be used once the reactors are converted.
43. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 33. At a 19.9 percent concentration, the LEU used in the reactors would be substantially more enriched than standard LEU fuel (three to five percent) and would thus require the construction or modification of a Russian blending facility. It is estimated that such a facility would take eight months to construct and cost roughly $10 million.
44. “Fact Sheet: Non-Proliferation and Export Control Policy,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary, September 27, 1993, p. 2. One of the ways that the United States pursues this goal is by assisting countries to substitute HEU with LEU in their research reactors through the Reduced Enrichment Research and Test Reactor (RETR) Program.
45. Proponents of HEU fuel use counter that extracting HEU from converted reactor spent fuel would, in any event, make little economic sense because it would require the construction of a new plant especially designed to reprocess this kind of fuel.
46. A third option for short-term funding, the State Department’s Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund, was never fully considered due to the limited dollar amounts in this fund. Thus, although resources from the fund were available to help DOE conduct the core conversion and reactor replacement studies, the fund could not be expected to implement either of these options.
47. “Department of Energy FY 1997 Congressional Budget Request and other Defense Activities, Nuclear Security/Russian Production Reactor Shutdown Program,” p. 628.
48. At the time, Representative Myers was also raising objections to a reprogramming request for DOE’s effort to stabilize the spent fuel associated with North Korea’s nuclear program. This request would have to be resolved before anyre-programmingrequest for core conversion request could be considered, making prospects for obtaining conversion funding seem even dimmer. Ultimately, both the North Korean re-programming request and the FY 1997 core conversion requests were approved.
49. The “concrete deliverables” contracting process used also in the DOE’s MPC&A program sets a date by which materials or information are to be delivered for a given price. This is substantially less complex than DOD contracting procedures that require extensive auditing of individual projects, and certifications to Congress that funds are being used in accordance with restrictive U.S. contracting laws. For a description of these procedures, see Stern, “U.S. Assistance Programs for Improving MPC&A in the Former Soviet Union,” p. 26.
50. DOE national security-related activities are authorized by House National Security and Senate Armed Services Committees. Funds are then appropriated by the House and Senate Energy Appropriations Sub-Committees, rather than by the respective Defense Appropriations Committees.
51. For an account of DOD’s prior refusal to fund programs that it either did not view as politically feasible or as a legitimate part of the CTR, see Ellis, “Nunn-Lugar’s Mid-life Crisis,” pp. 94-95.
52. Apprised in advance ofthe meeting, the Union of Concerned Scientists and five other arms control organizations sent a letter to the Vice President Core on May 13, 1996, urging him to support full funding for the project and “To take whatever action is necessary” to complete the program.
53. The amendment states that “The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, shall develop a cooperative program with the Government of Russia to eliminate the production of weapons grade plutonium by modifying or replacing the reactor cores at Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyarsk 26 … ” Title XIII, The Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996, Section 1333.
54. In a move that unexpectedly created nearly unanimous support for Nunn-Lugar programs in both Houses of Congress, Nunn, Lugar, and Domenici attached a set of measures to their amendment which would help prepare state and local emergency response and disaster management officials for the use of a weapon of mass destruction on U.S. soil.
55. Throughout 1996, representatives from the following organizations and coalitions expressed their support for the core conversion program through dozens of letters to Congressional and Executive Branch officials: the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, Council For A Liveable World, the Federation of American Scientists, the International Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Plutonium Challenge Coalition, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
56. Although Kurchatov Institute project participants were perhaps more understanding of U.S. domestic politics than other Russian officials, they had to contend with the majority view in Minatom that the United States had failed to identify significant funding for replacement or conversion while openly seeking to advance its own agenda with respect to reactor replacement options and verification. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 56.
57. Princeton University Professor Frank Von Hippel of the Federation of American Scientists and Professor Igor Khripunov of the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia, telephone interviews with author, July 1996. Khripunov and Von Hippel communicated with Russian officials who had witnessed Mikhailov’s unqualified endorsement of the Kurchatov Institute’s collaborative work with PNNL and DOE
58. For a summary of the positions on core conversion taken by the Union of Concerned Scientist and other non-governmental organizations when meeting with Spratt and his staff, see Todd Perry, “Turf Fights Snarl Nunn-Lugan Put Nuclear Control Ahead of Agency Squabbles,” Defense News, July 22-28, 1996, p. 15.
59. Due to the eight-month period needed to construct a special fuel fabrication infrastructure for the reactors, one reactor is scheduled for conversion in 1999, and the remaining reactors are scheduled to be converted in 2000, once - an adequate amount of fuel is fabricated. However, if the LEU option is chosen, this schedule may be delayed by an additional year so that a new or modified blending facility can be constructed.
60. Chao, “Prospects for Replacement and Shutdown of Russian Weapons-Plutonium Production Reactors,” p. 57. On the broader issue of using U.S. assistance to promote U.S. nonproliferation objectives with Minatom.
61. John C. Baker, “Non-Proliferation Incentives and NIS Dual-Use Technology Exporters,” Adelphi Paper (draft)(International Institute for Strategic Studies, November 1996).