U.S. Backs HEU Recovery Effort

Technicians from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency, aided by Polish authorities, Russian officials and International Atomic Energy Agency experts, yesterday removed 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from a nuclear facility located about 20 miles from Warsaw, the Boston Globe reported today (see GSN, July 14).

The material, fresh fuel for the research reactor at Otwock-Swierk, was transferred under armed guard to a facility in Russia, where it is due to be blended down into a proliferation-resistant form.

Nonproliferation experts hailed the effort, the latest conducted under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, but said additional efforts are needed to secure dangerous materials at more than 160 sites worldwide.

“This is an important development,” said Anthony Weir, a research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom. “But there is a long way yet to go. The important thing is to keep the eye on the ball of all the nuclear material, not just the material that is currently being dealt with. We need a comprehensive package for all the threats we are facing around the world.”

“Are we doing more? Yes.  Are we doing everything we need? No,” said Joseph Cirincione, vice president for national security studies at the Center for American Progress. “It is as if we have all the time in the world. And we don’t.”

U.S. officials discovered the existence of the material at Otwock-Swierk earlier this year. Washington funded security upgrades for the site until the removal operation could be conducted, the Globe reported (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Aug. 10).

The United States plans to assist Polish efforts to convert the research reactor to use low-enriched uranium fuel beginning in 2009, according to an Energy Department release.

The department is also helping to secure radioactive materials in Poland, having completed security upgrades at 37 Polish facilities and with work continuing at six additional sites (DOE release).

IAEA Project Manager Arnaud Atger called the operation “another critical step towards enhancing the security of fissile material, by eliminating stockpiles of HEU.”

The agency is also working with Poland to convert its powerful research reactor, MARIA, from using highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel.

“Poland serves as a model of cooperation for other eligible countries, to encourage them to ship back their remaining inventories of fresh HEU fuel and convert their research reactors to proliferation-resistant LEU,” Atger said.

More than 100 research reactors around the globe still use weapon-grade uranium, according to an agency press statement (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Aug. 10).

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