Russia Removes Fuel From German Reactor

Russia today completed the removal of more than 300 kilograms of enriched uranium fuel from a German nuclear research reactor, Reuters reported.  The transfer was part of a U.S.-Russian program to recover nuclear weapon-usable materials from reactors the two nations supplied over past decades (see GSN, Dec. 5; Reuters/New York Times, Dec. 18).

The fuel included 268 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, according to a U.S. Energy Department release, although the exact enrichment level was not disclosed.  It was the largest amount of Russian-origin fuel transferred under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative which aims to reduce terrorist access to nuclear materials (see GSN, May 26, 2004).

“This successful removal is an example of the international community working collectively to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, and is the kind of concrete international security action that increases both U.S. security and that of our allies,” Linton Brooks, head the department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, said in the release (NNSA release, Dec. 18).

More than 500 police were involved in the removal operation, which involved driving the nuclear fuel 10 kilometers in a 40-vehicle convoy to the Dresden airport, where the material was loaded onto a Russian aircraft.  A decoy convoy failed to fool a group of 20 to 30 antinuclear protesters who blocked the path of the fuel-carrying convoy and forced it to take an alternative route, Reuters reported.

Russia plans to reduce the enrichment level of the reactor fuel and produce nuclear power plant fuel at its fuel fabrication site in Podolsk, according to Reuters (Reuters, Dec. 18).

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