Classified U.S. nuclear threat reports indicate that rogue states and terrorist groups have learned that they can make nuclear weapons with low-enriched uranium or materials obtained from spent nuclear fuel, USA Today reported today (see GSN, Feb. 12).

Historically, international efforts have sought to limit the spread of nuclear weapons by focusing on strictly controlling two hard-to-make materials, highly enriched uranium and plutonium, according to USA Today.

Five years ago, however, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory were able to design a small nuclear weapon using low-enriched uranium, USA Today reported.  The weapon had the capability to destroy a square mile of a city. 

Interested parties could obtain LEU from research reactors, of which many use uranium containing less than 20 percent of the highly fissionable isotope uranium-235 (see GSN, Oct. 22, 2002).  Making a weapon with such material, however, would require expertise and relatively large amounts of material, according to USA Today.

Even nuclear power reactors that use uranium enriched to less than 5 percent could be a potential source for weapons materials since it would be relatively easy to further enrich such uranium, according to experts.

“If you got a stack of uranium enriched to 4-5 percent, which as a rule is not seriously protected, the plant needed to convert it to 90 percent enrichment is potentially small and easy to hide,” Harvard University nuclear specialist Matthew Bunn said.

Scientists have also discovered that a rogue state or a well-supported terrorist group would be able to obtain necessary materials from spent fuel, according to USA Today.  A recently declassified study conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1995 found that rogue states or terrorist would need only “modest facilities and equipment” to obtain weapon-usable materials from spent nuclear fuel.

Even though low-enriched uranium and spent fuel can be used to develop weapons, U.S. counterproliferation efforts continue to focus much more on plutonium and highly enriched uranium, according to USA Today (see GSN, Jan. 31).  Under U.S. and international guidelines, facilities that handle low-enriched uranium or spent fuel are not required to have security systems to prevent theft — a measure required of those facilities that handle highly enriched uranium or plutonium.

International Atomic Energy Agency officials defended the distinction between the two types of materials, saying that interested parties would have the easiest time making an effective weapon using highly enriched uranium or plutonium.

“We work on the assumption that rogue states, or terrorists for that matter, know how to make (nuclear) weapons with small amounts of material and different types and combinations of material,” said IAEA senior safeguards expert Davis Hurt.  “But we’ve been advised by experts with the nuclear weapons states that it would be very difficult,” Hurt added,

Another concern is a fear that efforts to secure highly enriched uranium and plutonium stockpiles would be hurt if more attention was paid to low-enriched uranium and spent-fuel supplies, USA Today reported.  Russia’s economic situation has prevented it from adequately funding efforts to secure former Soviet sites.  U.S. nonproliferation funding has only reached fewer than half the sites of concern, according to USA Today.

“We need to have more countries throwing money into the pot,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a former assistant secretary of energy now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Peter Eisler, USA Today, Feb. 27).

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