IAEA Praises U.S. Plan to Recover Nuclear Materials

The International Atomic Energy Agency last week praised the launch of the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which seeks to recover U.S.- and Russian-origin fresh and spent highly enriched uranium fuel from research reactors around the world (see GSN, May 27).

“The proposal is a continuation and extension of initiatives that the IAEA, the USA and others have been working on for many years, and with renewed intensity in the past couple of years, to address nuclear security around the world,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in a prepared statement.

Under the initiative, the United States plans to work with other countries and the agency to repatriate all Russian-origin fresh reactor fuel by the end of the year, and all Russian-origin spent fuel by 2010. In addition, the United States would also seek to recover all U.S.-origin spent research reactor fuel and to convert research reactors to use low-enriched uranium fuel (IAEA release, May 27).

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