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Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials
Converting Research Reactors
Status
 German HEU-fueled research reactor |
Highly enriched uranium (HEU)—the easiest material in the world from which to make a nuclear bomb—is particularly vulnerable to theft at civilian research reactors, many of which use HEU as their fuel, and which often have minimal security. Since 1978, the United States has had a program in place to convert research reactors from using HEU fuel to using proliferation-resistant low-enriched uranium (LEU) as their fuel.[1] This effort, known as the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) program, has since spawned related cooperative efforts in many countries around the world. Since its inception, the effort has converted over 30 research reactors to LEU fuels, avoided the need for shipments of over three metric tons of HEU, and returned hundreds of kilograms of U.S.-supplied HEU to the United States.[2] |
Over 130 research reactors continue to operate with HEU in over 40 countries around the world, however, with an estimated 20 tons of HEU in the research reactor fuel cycle worldwide, enough for hundreds of nuclear weapons.[3]
Early in 2002, the technical leader of the RERTR program laid out its renewed importance in stark terms:
Today we know that if a nuclear weapon were to fall in the hands of those who organized the September 11 attacks there would be no threats and no negotiations. Millions [sic] of innocent victims would die in a flash, without warning, killed by people driven by a twisted ideology and devoid of any respect for human life, including their own.
It is with this terrible vision in mind that we must face the task ahead of us: how to remove from civilian traffic any amount of highly enriched uranium that a terrorist could use to manufacture an explosive device.[4]
Faced with this threat, world security requires a redoubled effort to eliminate HEU from civil use throughout the world—and then to secure, monitor, and reduce the remaining stockpiles of military HEU. The main civil users of HEU are research reactors: more than 140 research reactors are operating with HEU in the world today, in dozens of countries, and scores more are shut-down or converted to LEU but still have HEU spent fuel (which also poses a potential proliferation threat) on-site.
All but a few of the HEU-fueled research reactors in the world were supplied by the United States or the Soviet Union. Hence, converting the U.S. and Soviet-supplied reactors to LEU fuel, and taking back the HEU that these states supplied in the past, would solve most of the problem of HEU at research reactors—and the two governments are now planning actions to accelerate that conversion. In May 2002, President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement calling for accelerated efforts to reduce stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear material,[5] and in September 2002, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumiantsev issued a joint statement announcing that the joint expert group established by the President’s statement had completed its work, and had recommended, among other steps, "accelerated development of LEU fuel for both Soviet designed and United States-designed research reactors."[6] In response to this call for acceleration from the highest levels, the U.S. RERTR program developed a plan designed to make it possible to convert allU.S.-supplied and Russian-supplied research reactors in certain categories to LEU by 2012.[7] (Achieving that objective, however, would require offering substantial new incentives to many facilities to convert or shut down, and give up their HEU stockpiles—and the categories not included would leave a substantial number of research reactors still operating with HEU.)
U.S. efforts to address the issue of vulnerable HEU at research reactors therefore have four key parts: the RERTR reactor conversion effort itself, a program to take back U.S.-supplied research reactor fuels, cooperation with Russia to convert Soviet-designed research reactors, and cooperation with Russia and the IAEA to launch a Russian research reactor fuel take-back program. This section will describe each of these in turn. In addition, there have been a number of ad hoc efforts to remove nuclear material from especially vulnerable facilities—and there is now a need for a single, fast-paced program with all the authority, resources, expertise, and flexibility needed to remove nuclear material from vulnerable sites around the world as quickly as possible. Those issues are addressed in Removing Nuclear Material from Vulnerable Sites.
Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR)
Although it has always struggled to maintain even modest funding, the RERTR effort has successfully developed new fuels that allow many research reactors to switch to LEU without substantially reducing their scientific capabilities, and has successfully converted more than 30 research reactors around the world—including many of the largest U.S.-supplied users of fresh HEU fuel.[8] With the exception of the FRM-II reactor under construction at Garching, Germany, no research reactor in the Western world has been built with HEU fuel since the RERTR program began, in 1978. Since 1986, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has required all U.S. licensed research reactors to convert to LEU if suitable fuels and government funding for the conversion were available, and most have done so (though conversion of some is still pending, and some Department of Energy (DOE) reactors, not subject to NRC rules, have not converted).[9] Since 1992, U.S. law has limited U.S. exports of HEU to facilities that cannot use available LEU fuels, and commit to convert to LEU as soon as appropriate fuels become available—with the result that U.S. HEU exports have plummeted from nearly 700 kilograms a year in the 1970s to only a few tens of kilograms a year today.
A substantial part of the RERTR program's work has focused on developing fuels that would allow research reactors to convert to LEU without substantial cost increases or performance reductions. If a research reactor is to convert to a low-enriched fuel—where a much smaller fraction of the uranium atoms are U-235, the isotope that fissions in the reactor, as opposed to U-238, an isotope that absorbs neutrons—without greatly reducing the reactor's capabilities, it needs a fuel with a higher density of uranium. When the RERTR program began, typical U.S.-designed research reactors were using HEU fuels with a density of 1.3 grams of uranium per cubic centimeter (gU/cc). The RERTR program developed a range of fuels with higher densities, including uranium silicide fuels with densities up to 4.85 gU/cc, which allowed a substantial number of research reactors to convert.[10] Unfortunately, for several years DOE did not provide sufficient funding to continue development of more advanced fuels, which was restarted in 1996. Since then, the program has explored a number of new fuel material types with higher densities, particularly uranium-molybdenum fuels, to achieve the densities needed for the remaining research reactors to convert. Fuel materials with densities in the range of 6-9 gU/cc have been successfully tested, and recently a 15.6 gU/cc uranium-molybdenum material has undergone initial tests with excellent results.[11] Once that fuel is fully developed and licensed, and economic fuel fabrication arrangements for it are made, it should be possible to convert nearly all present and future research reactors to LEU, while offering "unprecedented performance"—that is, performance even higher than they have previously been achieving with HEU.[12]
In addition to reactors for research and testing, there are also reactors for production of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and other medical isotopes that use HEU in irradiation targets. This production accounts for tens of kilograms of civil commerce in HEU every year. The RERTR program has developed LEU targets to replace HEU in isotope production. Final testing of these targets, slated to take place in Indonesia, was postponed following the September 11 attacks. The program has also developed chemical processes which should make it possible to recover the medical isotopes after irradiation of the targets without generating substantially more radioactive waste than results from the use of HEU targets.[13] Unfortunately, however, cooperation by some of the major producers of medical isotopes has been limited in recent years, and they have launched an effort to amend U.S. laws that require them to cooperate with LEU conversion efforts if they are to continue to receive U.S.-supplied HEU fuel.[14]
In short, with the fuels and targets already developed, or nearing final qualification, for all the legitimate civilian purposes for using HEU, within a few years there should no longer be any need for HEU in the civilian uses of nuclear energy.
U.S. Foreign Research
Reactor Spent
Nuclear Fuel Acceptance Program
Spent fuel from research reactors also poses a potential proliferation threat. Even after irradiation, the fuel often remains very highly enriched—and because research reactor fuel elements are often small, relatively lightly irradiated, and have in many cases been cooling for decades, the majority of the HEU research reactor spent fuel in the world is no longer radioactive enough to protect it from theft by terrorists. In addition, the U.S. offer to take back research reactor fuel on condition that facilities agree to convert to LEU is absolutely central to convincing facilities to make this conversion. Hence, the research reactor fuel take-back program is a fundamental element of U.S. efforts to keep HEU out of the hands of terrorists and hostile states.[15]
From the days of Atoms for Peace in the 1950s, when the United States began supplying research reactors to other countries around the world, the U.S. policy was to take back the fuel after it was used. As domestic concern about spent fuel and other nuclear waste increased, this policy became more controversial. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the policy was allowed to lapse, leaving foreign research reactors with no place to send their spent fuel. Some reactors that had already converted to LEU fuels began considering converting back to HEU, as their main option for fuel management other than the United States was to send the fuel to a commercial reprocessing plant, and some of these plants were not set up to handle the LEU uranium silicide fuels to which many reactors had converted. [16] In 1996, after an extensive public discussion and decision process, the United States agreed to renew its fuel take-back program, offering to take back all aluminum-based or TRIGA fuels from U.S.-supplied facilities, if the facilities either were using LEU fuel already, or were committed to converting as soon as suitable LEU fuel became available.[17] All told, over 19 tons of spent fuel in nearly 23,000 fuel elements from 41 countries was eligible for the take-back offer,[18] although the number of fuel elements that the program actually put in its tentative schedule for fuel returns was just under 18,000.[19] The offer was for a limited time, however: fuel irradiated before the offer was renewed, or within ten years afterward (considered a reasonable time to complete the conversion to LEU and make other arrangements for future spent fuel) was eligible, but fuel irradiated after May 13, 2006 was not.[20] The 2006 deadline was set in the belief that by that time, research reactor operators would have made other arrangements for management of their spent fuel (such as reprocessing in Europe). The take-back offer is a key incentive for reactors to agree to convert, and it would therefore be desirable to maintain it until LEU fuels adequate for conversion of all the world’s research reactors have been developed, qualified, and become commercially available—but there is now no hope, even on the new, more aggressive schedule proposed for the RERTR program after the summit statement of 2002, that this will be the case. New medium-density uranium-molybdenum dispersion fuels intended to replace the uranium-silicide fuels to which many reactors converted but which pose problems for reprocessing are now expected to be qualified for use in late 2006—after the early 2006 deadline. The higher density uranium-molybdenum monolithic fuel that would allow most of the rest of the world’s reactors to convert to LEU is on an "aggressive" schedule, which, if successful, would allow it to be qualified by the end of 2008—but not by May of 2006, when fuel must be loaded to be eligible for the take-back effort.[21] Hence, research reactor operators around the world are already struggling to make other plans for the fuel generated after the 2006 deadline, and pressure to extend the deadline is beginning to build.
The spent fuel take-back program has been successful so far, with over 5,500 fuel elements shipped back to the United States from 27 countries by October 2002.[22] This, however, represents less than one-third of the fuel elements scheduled for take-back (and just over 700 kilograms of the many tons of HEU the United States exported); recent information on the large number of facilities that do not currently plan to take advantage of the U.S. take-back offer suggests that more than half of the U.S.-provided HEU fuel elements around the world will remain abroad when the program comes to its currently scheduled end in a few years.[23] Facilities that use one load of fuel for their entire lifetime (such as critical assemblies) do not have spent fuel management problems (at least until they are shut down), and hence have had little incentive to take advantage of the U.S. offer, and a range of other facilities have also made other arrangements, from on-site storage to reprocessing. Some of the fuel that does not return will remain in storage for a prolonged period, creating a potential proliferation issue; much of the rest will be reprocessed (which often results in the HEU being blended to LEU), in the case of reactors that manage to work out commercial reprocessing arrangements they consider more favorable than the U.S. take-back offer.
U.S.-Russian Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) Cooperation
Like the United States, the Soviet Union in 1978 began a program to reduce the enrichment of fuels for the research reactors it had designed. Over the next decade, an increased density fuel with an enrichment of 36% was developed, and used to convert a number of reactors. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union largely stopped exporting 90% enriched research reactor fuel, supplying facilities abroad with 36% enriched material instead. By the late 1980s, however, the reduced enrichment program was put on hold due to lack of funds, a situation that only got worse after the collapse of the Soviet Union.[24]
U.S.-Russian cooperation to develop LEU fuels for Soviet-designed research reactors and then convert these reactors officially began with a joint letter of intent signed in 1994, though actual funded activities did not get underway until mid-1996. Progress was slow in the early years, with the Russian institutes insisting on focusing on increasing the density of the uranium oxide cermet fuels they had previously been working with; while initial test results were unpromising, , an LEU fuel developed in this effort is now qualified for use in four Soviet-designed research reactors.[25] Then in 1998 the United States sanctioned NIKIET, the lead laboratory on the Russian side, over its cooperation with Iran, throwing another wrench into the works. By 2000, however, the Russian institutes began working on uranium-molybdenum fuels with a density in the range of 6 gU/cc, and irradiation tests began in 2002. If this fuel proves out, it should be possible to convert all non-Russian and most Russian Soviet-supplied research reactors.[26]
Progress on actually converting reactors has been painfully slow. No reactors have actually been converted, and only a couple of reactors have been engaged in detailed feasibility studies and planning for conversion. The first reactor to be converted is expected to be the VVR-CM reactor in Uzbekistan, which program officials hope to have converted in 2005-2006.[27]
Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return
Many of the facilities in the world with the largest and least secure quantities of HEU on-site are Soviet-supplied research reactors. Indeed, special operations targeted on removing HEU from especially vulnerable facilities have already been implemented for five of these facilities, in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria. (See Removing Nuclear Material From Vulnerable Sites.) A number of these facilities are already shut-down, or are likely to shut down soon, so in some cases conversion is not the issue—simply cleaning out HEU fuel that is no longer needed is the issue. Thus, Russian take-back of Soviet-supplied HEU could be a crucial element in a focused effort to remove potential bomb material from the most vulnerable sites around the world. In addition, as with the U.S. take-back program, for those reactors that will continue to operate, a take-back offer linked to conversion could be a key part of convincing reactors to convert to LEU fuel. Clearly it will be essential that the Russian facilities where such material would be shipped be highly secure (which may be in doubt in some cases—the Novosibirsk facility where the Romanian material was sent, for example, has been the site of a number of serious security incidents);[28] in some cases, for added security, the United States and Russia may cooperate to destroy the HEU by blending it to LEU, as is planned for the material removed from Yugoslavia, Romania, and Bulgaria.
In Soviet times, the policy was to take back the research reactor fuel supplied after it was irradiated, but this policy was never fully implemented—with the result that there are over 13,000 Soviet-origin HEU fuel assemblies around the world, and 16,800 LEU assemblies, with some 25,400 of these assemblies outside of Russia.[29] The United States and Russia began discussing the possibility of cooperation on a Russian take-back program in late 1999.[30] These discussions evolved into a Russia-U.S.-IAEA tripartite initiative, with the United States providing the funding (separately from the RERTR budget) on condition that reactors sending their HEU back to Russia agree to convert to LEU. In September 2000, the IAEA Director-General sent a letter to nearly all of the states with Soviet-supplied research reactors asking if they would be interested in participating in a Russian take-back program, and mentioning that if reactors agreed to convert to LEU as soon as practicable, the United States government would be prepared to contribute to the cost of the take-back. Most of the relevant governments responded positively, saying that they would be interested in taking part in such a program.[31]
By late 2001, the United States and Russia had largely reached agreement on how much the United States would pay, under what circumstances, for fuel to be shipped back to Russia and managed there.[32] Finally, on November 7, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumiantsev announced that their governments had concluded negotiations on the government-to-government agreement governing return of fresh and spent research reactor fuel to Russia and that they intended to sign the long-awaited agreement very soon. According to Secretary Abraham, the two countries are focusing their efforts on repatriating fuel from 20 research reactors in 17 countries.[33] The joint statement issued by Abraham and Rumiantsev also commits the two countries to bilateral consultations that will lead by the end of 2003 to agreement on the schedule for completing the return of fuel from these targeted sites.
Even once the agreement is in place, however, substantial obstacles will remain. Many of the Soviet-supplied research reactors, like U.S.-supplied research reactors, are concerned about what will happen to their facilities and to the scientists who work there if they give up their HEU, and are not at all eager to do so—substantial packages of incentives, and some hard negotiating, is likely to be necessary to get many of these stocks of HEU moved. Within Russia, the process for performing the environmental assessments required (when irradiated, as opposed to fresh, HEU is to be brought into the country) by Russia’s new law on spent fuel imports has never been implemented and remains in contention; this has substantially slowed progress and is likely to continue to do so in the future, unless high levels of the Russian government intervene to push the process forward.[34] After signing his statement with Secretary Abraham, however, Minister Rumiantsev publicly emphasized the crucial importance of this initiative, which may bode well for ensuring high-level support for overcoming the obstacles within the Russian government.[35]
The United States will only pay for take-backs for reactors that agree to convert to LEU. In August 2002, 48 kilograms of 80%-enriched Soviet-supplied HEU fuel was removed from the research reactor at Vinca, in Yugoslavia, and this was followed by the removal of 14 kilograms of similar material from Romania in September 2003 and 16.9 kilograms of 36%-enriched Soviet-supplied HEU fuel from Bulgaria in December 2003 (see Removing Material from Vulnerable Sites)—but according to Ambassador Linton Brooks, head of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the Yugoslavian and Romanian operations were done on a "case-by-case" basis, and not covered by the government-to-government agreement announced in November 2003.[36] (It is interesting to note that even though both the Romanian and the Bulgarian operations were carried out before the U.S.-Russian government-to-government had been signed, the DOE press release on the Bulgarian shipment referred to it as the "second" under the U.S.-Russian-IAEA tripartite initiative to return Soviet-supplied HEU fuel to Russia—suggesting that both of these operations are now being counted as part of that initiative.)[37] What was originally planned as the first major take-back of HEU in the tripartite effort, from Uzbekistan (a country where a heavily armed insurgent group with very strong links to al Qaeda, on the U.S. terrorist group list, has its home base) was agreed during Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s visit to Washington in early 2002,[38] but has been delayed in large part because of the difficulty Russian government and commercial entities have been having in agreeing on the process for preparing the required environmental assessment for importing irradiated fuel, and getting that assessment completed If remaining negotiations and plans go well, and the internal bureaucratic difficulties within Russia are successfully resolved, this shipment is expected to occur in early 2004.[39] Large stockpiles of HEU at shut-down facilities in Belarus (more than 300 kilograms of HEU, some of it very highly enriched) and Ukraine (some 75 kilograms of 90% enriched HEU powder), along with less well-known stockpiles in several other locations, will presumably be high-priority targets for this effort.[40] The U.S. State Department has indicated that it envisions material being removed from some two dozen locations as part of this effort.[41] Following the Bulgaria operation, Deputy National Nuclear Security Administrator for Nuclear Nonproliferation Paul Longsworth told the Washington Post that the U.S., Russia, and the IAEA had finalized a plan for the return of all Soviet-origin HEU to Russia by the end of 2005.[42] A spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy, Nikolai Shingarev, confirmed the scope of work, stating that in all 22 facilities in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East remained as part of the joint U.S.-Russian plan.[43]
Accelerated Materials Disposition Initiative
Following the September, 2002 Abraham-Rumiantsev statement on accelerating HEU blend-down and conversion efforts, in its January 2003 budget request, the Bush administration proposed a $30 million "Accelerated Materials Disposition Initiative," including $3 million to accelerate the RERTR effort (including fuels for both U.S.-supplied and Soviet-supplied reactors), and $1 million for the first year of a 10-year effort under which the United States would buy up to 150 kilograms of Russian HEU each year to fuel the remaining U.S. HEU-fueled research reactors until they are ready to convert to LEU. As part of this effort, both Russia and the United States are to accelerate the conversion of their own HEU-fueled reactors. Congress approved these elements of the initiative, but zeroed out the $25 million that was intended for a modest acceleration of blending of Russian HEU and sale to the United States. (See Legislative Update.)
Budget
See
budget table
The RERTR budget has always been modest—indeed, in the first Bush administration, there was an attempt to zero it out. In fiscal year (FY) 1997, the program budget increased from $3-4 million a year previously to the range of $6 million per year, as serious efforts in advanced fuel development were restarted. The total RERTR appropriated budget for FY 2003 was $5.7 million, and for FY 2004, the Bush administration requested an increase to $8.9 million (counting the $3 million from the new initiative just mentioned), which Congress approved.[44] This funding increase is expected to allow a significant acceleration of the effort, both for U.S.-designed and Soviet-designed reactors. In addition, the State Department's Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF) made a one-time $1.5 million grant to support Russian RERTR activities in 1996, which has now been essentially entirely expended.
Funding for the Russian HEU take-back effort was only $1 million in FY 2001 and FY 2002. Funding for this item increased substantially at the request of the administration, to $9.5 million, in FY 2003, and increased still more, to $9.7 million for FY 2004. Most of these funds have not yet been spent, because of the delays in implementing the HEU transfers to Russia.
The Department of Energy has not made public information specifically detailing the amount of funding available for accepting spent nuclear fuel from foreign research reactors. Instead, this funding is lumped together with stabilization and disposition activities for spent fuel from various non-DOE sources, such as domestic research reactors.[45]
No estimate of the total cost to complete the four elements of the RERTR effort described above is publicly available.
Key Issues and Recommendations
To achieve their goal of eliminating the civil use of HEU worldwide, these efforts need:
- to be integrated with a focused effort to clean out potential bomb material from vulnerable sites around the world;
- increased funding;
- a renewed international consensus on the goal of eliminating civil HEU use;
- an intense focus on providing adequate incentives to reactors to convert;
- an accelerated pace, particularly for converting Soviet-designed facilities and for the Russian take-back of Soviet-supplied HEU;
- new efforts to clean out HEU from lower-power facilities that have traditionally not been a key focus of the RERTR effort;
- a redoubled effort to ensure that HEU spent fuel is also removed from facilities around the world;
- a substantial effort to convert medical isotope production to LEU;
- new approaches to addressing the HEU-fueled research reactors not covered by current programs; and
- new efforts to convert non-research reactors using HEU, such as those for icebreakers, naval vessels, and medical isotope production.
Lack of Integration with Other Efforts. Currently, research reactor conversion efforts are being pursued independently of other programs to address the threats posed by vulnerable nuclear materials and facilities, including programs to upgrade security at such sites and even efforts to improve research reactor safety. Moreover, those focusing on research reactor conversion have no authority to offer facilities broader packages of incentives to give up their HEU, or to work to give facilities incentives to shut down (which may be more appropriate than conversion for older, unneeded facilities). This lack of putting all the available tools into one set of hands makes the overall effort to remove nuclear material from vulnerable sites much less effective than it could be.
- Recommendation: A focused, integrated "global cleanout" program should be established, funded at approximately $50 million per year, with the goal of removing all the nuclear material from as many of the world's most vulnerable facilities as possible as quickly as possible. The program should have flexible authority to give facilities a wide range of incentives to give up their potential bomb materials—including either help with converting to LEU or help shutting down a facility that is no longer needed. (See Removing Nuclear Materials From Vulnerable Sites.)
- Recommendation: With the sheer number of research reactors in the world far beyond what is needed today, and many of these reactors 30-40 years old, the United States should launch a related effort to work with other states and the IAEA to rationalize the world's nuclear research reactor effort, to achieve the needed scientific, training, and other purposes with the highest safety and security at the lowest cost. This approach should seek a sustainable balance between science, security, safety, and cost—an approach that is seen as being anti-science will surely fail to gain support. The effort should include building consensus on international standards and national regulations requiring security and safety measures for research reactors appropriate to the post-September 11 environment.[46] It should also include provision of incentives for the creation of regional sharing of nuclear research facilities, allowing some facilities to be shut down so that more resources can be devoted to safe and secure operation of the remainder. It is very likely that if states put in place security regulations that adequately address plausible current terrorist threats to research reactors, the cost of meeting these regulations would be enough to cause a substantial number of research reactors to shut down, requiring such increased regional sharing.[47]
Funding. The recent budget increase for RERTR should allow a significant acceleration of the effort. Prior to this increase, the effort to develop very high-density uranium-molybdenum fuels was being slowed by lack of funds; money for Russian LEU fuel development had essentially run out; and virtually no funds were available for assisting in the actual conversion of Soviet-designed reactors.[48] The FY 2004 increase, being less than $4 million, may not be sufficient to cover all of these elements and allow them to move forward at the fastest possible pace. Funds currently available for supporting the Russian research reactor fuel take-back effort are substantial, but not sufficient to move quickly to get these materials to secure locations, if the need for significant incentives to many of these facilities is considered.
- Recommendation: Sufficient budget resources should be provided in FY 2005 and beyond to allow fuel development and qualification for both U.S.-designed and Soviet-designed reactors to move forward at a pace unconstrained by funding. This will likely require maintaining or modestly increasing the FY 2004 budget levels for the RERTR effort. Funding for actual conversions of reactors (at a cost estimated at roughly $1 million per reactor, on average, including provision of the first LEU core), [49] and for accelerating the Russian research reactor fuel take-back effort, could be provided from the $50-million-per-year "global cleanout" effort recommended above.
Renewing the International Consensus for Eliminating Civil HEU. Ever since the conclusion of the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) in 1980, there has in principle been an international consensus behind the RERTR goal of eliminating the civil use of HEU. Universality—the notion that every research reactor should convert, not just a selected group—is key to the success of the RERTR effort, as without it, operators of reactors that made sacrifices to convert (in reduced reactor performance or higher costs, for example) will always feel themselves at a disadvantage compared to operators of facilities that remain HEU-fueled.[50] Hence, Germany's decision to design the FRM-II reactor to use high-density HEU fuel—which, if completed, will be the first HEU-fueled reactor built outside of Libya, China, and the former Soviet Union since the consensus was established in 1980—represents a major challenge to the global RERTR effort. The reactor itself will use over a ton of HEU over its projected 30-year life; most of that HEU will likely have to come from Russia (since the United States will not supply a reactor designed for HEU over U.S. objections), contributing to Russia taking the role of alternate supplier of HEU to any research reactor not wanting to convert; other existing research reactors will question why they should bear any burdens to convert to LEU if FRM-II does not have to do so (and some already converted facilities might begin considering converting back); and once the taboo on building new HEU-fueled facilities is broken, other new facilities may be designed to use HEU fuel as well.[51] FRM-II could be converted to use LEU fuels that already exist, with some performance penalty,[52] and could use the new higher-density fuels with no significant penalties once they are developed.
Similarly, the nuclear weapon states (including the United States) have been slow to convert their own reactors. The United States still has 12 research reactors in operation using HEU; Russia has dozens, and, like Germany, is building a new HEU-fueled reactor, the PIK, near St. Petersburg. By contrast, France and China have each contributed to the international consensus in recent years by designing their large new research reactors to use LEU.
- Recommendation: The United States and other concerned nations should make a renewed effort to convince Germany, especially given the changed world circumstances following the September 11 attacks, to shift the FRM-II facility to use LEU rather than HEU fuel, before it becomes operational.
- Recommendation: The United States should provide the funding to convert all of its remaining HEU-fueled research reactors as rapidly as practicable, as envisioned in the Abraham-Rumiantsev statement.
- Recommendation: The United States and other concerned nations should work to convince Russia to switch the PIK reactor to LEU fuel before it becomes operational. The United States and Russia, in their RERTR cooperation, should redouble their focus on converting reactors within Russia, as envisioned in the Abraham-Rumiantsev statement, and should work together to put in place adequate incentives for Russian reactors to convert.
Convincing Reactors to Convert. Converting a research reactor to LEU fuel inevitably involves some costs and difficulties for the facility, including modified licensing, a shift away from the fuel that is traditional and well-understood at that facility to something new, and the like. In some cases there are increased costs (if the LEU fuel is more expensive per unit of operating time, for example), or reduced performance (if the LEU fuel does not quite provide the same neutron flux as the HEU fuel it replaced). Thus, reactor operators need some incentive to agree to convert. To keep running their reactors, facility operators need reliable supplies of fresh fuel, and they need some place to put their spent fuel; hence, the main incentives the United States has used to try to convince reactors to convert have been linking both supply of fresh fuel from the United States and return of spent fuel to the United States to the reactors' agreement to convert to LEU. Since the U.S.-supplied reactors had no other major source of fresh fuel, and the U.S. offer was often the main available management means for the spent fuel, many reactors effectively felt forced to convert. There remain, however, a small number of high-power reactors that could convert with existing fuels, but have not yet done so—and both of the fresh fuel and the spent fuel incentives are now under pressure. On the fresh fuel side, Russia has entered the market and begun supplying facilities without requiring that they commit to convert: it has already supplied HEU for the HFR reactor in France and Germany's FRM-II, and has agreed to do so for the HFR in the Netherlands.[53] On the spent fuel side, the U.S. take-back offer will no longer apply to fuels irradiated after May, 2006, so reactor operators are already making plans for what they will do with their spent fuel after that. There, too, Russia, with its new law authorizing import of foreign spent fuel, may offer to accept facilities' spent fuel on a commercial basis, without any conversion commitment. The other principle alternative for most facilities is reprocessing at COGEMA—but its facilities are not set up to handle uranium silicide fuels, the main LEU fuels that converted