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Why Highly Enriched Uranium is a Threat
Updated September 2009
The most difficult challenge for a terrorist organization seeking to build a nuclear weapon or improvised nuclear device is obtaining fissile material, either plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU). HEU, uranium that has been processed to increase the proportion of the U-235 isotope to over 20%, is required for the construction of a gun-type nuclear device, the simplest type of nuclear weapon. The greater the proportion of U-235 (i.e. the higher the enrichment level), the less material is needed to cause a nuclear detonation. "Weapons-grade" uranium generally refers to uranium enriched to at least 90%, but material of far lower enrichment levels, found in both fresh and spent nuclear fuel, can be used to create a nuclear explosive device.
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In 2002, the U.S. National Research Council warned that "crude HEU weapons could be fabricated without state assistance," noting that "the primary impediment that prevents countries or technically competent terrorist groups from developing nuclear weapons is the availability of [nuclear material], especially HEU."[1] Creating a nuclear weapon from HEU is technically easier than building a plutonium weapon. Moreover, current technology is unlikely to detect a shielded nuclear device on a truck or boat. Therefore, securing and eliminating stocks of HEU is the surest way to decrease the risk that terrorist groups use this material to create a nuclear explosion. [For more information on HEU and the creation of an improvised nuclear device, see "HEU as weapons material a technical background," prepared by the organizers of the June 2006 Oslo Symposium on Minimization of HEU in the Civilian Nuclear Sector.]
Where is Civilian HEU Located?
As of the end of 2003, there were about 50 tons of HEU in civilian power and research programs in over 50 nations. These stocks continue to grow each year.[2] Yet as little as 25 kg are needed to produce a nuclear weaponsome 40-60 kg are needed for a cruder nuclear device. Bomb-grade material can be obtained from both fresh (unirradiated) and irradiated (also referred to as spent) HEU fuel. Fresh and lightly irradiated fuel (such as fuel used in critical assemblies and pulse reactors) is not radioactive, and thus safe to handle. Although using nuclear fuel in high-powered reactors initially makes it highly radioactive and thus very difficult to handle safely (often this fuel is referred to as "self-protecting"), spent fuel loses its radioactivity over time, making it easier to handle and thus more attractive to terrorists.
HEU is currently used in the civilian sphere to fuel research reactors, critical facilities, pulsed reactors, and a few icebreakers. Globally, 672 research reactors have been built, of which some 272 are operational in 56 countries, 214 are shut down, and 168 have been decommissioned. Some 128 of these facilities have 20 kg or more of HEU stocks. (There is as yet no comprehensive, authoritative inventory of civil HEU globally, another obstacle to progress in this area.) Many of the research reactors that have been shut down, but not decommissioned, have spent HEU fuel on site. HEU is also used as a target in reactors that produce medical isotopes; an estimated 85 kg of HEU is used for this purpose annually in reactors in Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and South Africa.[3] Russia, too, uses HEU for medical isotope production, but other countries, such as Australia and Indonesia, have begun producing these isotopes with LEU targets. Finally, Russia has eight nuclear-powered icebreakers that are currently in service, and plans to commission a new nuclear icebreaker in 2006. [For more, see "Civilian Uses of HEU"]
The United States and Russia supplied much of the HEU fuel used in research reactors world-wide; other producers include China (which sent HEU fuel for research reactors to Nigeria, Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, as well as enriched uranium to South Africa, and Argentina), France (to Chile and India), the United Kingdom (to Australia, India, and Japan) and South Africa (which did not export this fuel).[4] Before 1978, when Washington and Moscow became concerned about exports of highly enriched fuels, most of the fuel supplied by the United States (the bulk of which went to North American and the Asia-Pacific) was of very high enrichment levels (90% and above). The Soviet-supplied fuel, chiefly sent to eastern Europe, was typically 80% enriched. In order to reduce the risk of theft, many countries have returned HEU fuel, both fresh and spent, to its country of origin. [View a map of worldwide holdings of civilian HEU and clean-out]
Security of Civilian HEU
Many civilian facilities with HEU on site do not have adequate security. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that one of its missions discovered a research reactor with HEU that "was observed to have essentially no physical protection."[5] The IAEA assisted the facility in question in improving its security, but reported that overall, "deficiencies remain in the legal, administrative, and technical arrangements for controlling and protecting nuclear materials ... in many countries."[6] The U.S. Department of Energy has been assisting in physical protection upgrades 22 foreign research reactors through the Global Research Reactor Program. A September 2009 GAO report found that while most sites that have received upgrades generally meet IAEA security guidelines, in some cases, critical security weaknesses remained. [21]
It is not a simple matter to upgrade security measures adequately, since the majority of the world's research reactors are located in universities or other research centers that tend to be quite open to the public. While security concerns have dramatically increased since 9/11, it is difficult to reconfigure a site that was not built with physical protection in mind. Storage of spent fuel stocks is generally even less secure than fresh fuel stocks, as until just a few years ago spent nuclear fuel was considered "self-protecting" and few facilities wanted to spend money securing a material that was no longer of economic value. It is far more effective to remove this material from vulnerable locations than to attempt to increase security on-site.
Programs to Reduce and Eliminate HEU
There have been efforts to reduce the amount of HEU at civilian facilities since 1978, when Washington initiated the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) Program and Moscow began its own program to reduce enrichment at Soviet-built research reactors outside of the Soviet Union and changed its HEU export policies, supplying these reactors with 36% HEU in lieu of 80% HEU. In the past 25 years, many countries have cooperated with the RERtr program or initiated their own, similar programs. In May 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), which the IAEA, Russia, and others have since joined. Among its goals, the GTRI seeks to "minimize and eventually eliminate any reliance on HEU in the civilian fuel cycle, including conversion of research and test reactors worldwide from the use of HEU to the use of LEU fuel and targets." In January 2009, NNSA reported that 63 research reactors of the 129 targeted by GTRI had been either converted or shut down. However, approximately 78 research reactors are not included in the RERTR program, for various reasons.
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In addition to converting research reactors that use HEU fuel, the RERTR program is also working on the conversion of six medical isotope producers that use HEU targets in their reactors. The program includes the four largest producers of medical isotopes, located in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and South Africa. The RERTR program helped convert an isotope production reactor in Argentina to LEU in 2003, however, the Argentine reactor only produced medical isotopes on a relatively small scale. In 2004, RERTR was reportedly two to three years away from completing work that would make conversion of large medical isotope producers possible. There are no longer any technical barriers to conversion to LEU; only political and financial issues remain.[7]
Besides converting facilities to use LEU fuel, there have also been efforts to consolidate fresh and spent HEU fuel at a smaller number of relatively secure locations. This has involved removing the fuel, mostly to the United States and Russia, from other countries, as well as consolidating the fuel within countries. U.S. programs in this area (the Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return program to assist in the repatriation of fuel to Russia, and the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance Program, whereby U.S.-origin fuel is repatriated to the United States) have all been subsumed under the 2004 GTRI initiative. Despite these efforts, the number of locations with HEU has been only marginally decreased. [For more, see "Past and Current Efforts to Reduce Civilian HEU Use."]
A related program, the Material Consolidation and Conversion (MCC) project, established in 1999, reduces excess Russian civilian HEU by blending it down into LEU. As of January 2009, 11.1 of an estimated 17 tons of U-235 in excess Russian civilian HEU had been blended down.[8]
Both the United States and Russia have large quantities of HEU that are no longer needed in their defense programs. In Russia, excess HEU from weapons is blended down to LEU within the framework of the "Megatons to Megawatts" program (also know as HEU-LEU program). The resulting LEU is then released for civilian use. [For more details, see "Overview of the US-Russian HEU-LEU Program"] The United States initially declared some 174 metric tons of HEU as excess to military needs, designating this material as civilian.[9] An additional 200 metric tons were officially removed from the U.S. weapons stockpile in November 2005; of this amount, about 20 metric tons will be down-blended to LEU.[10]
Since the amount of HEU that is actually excess to military needs is likely far greater than the amount that has officially been declared excess to date, there have also been calls to speed up the various blenddown programs. A current effort spearheaded by the Nuclear Threat Initiative involves a detailed study of the Russian nuclear complex to determine the options for speeding up the U.S.-Russian HEU-LEU program, and what costs various scenarios entail. [For more information, see "Accelerating the Blend-Down of Russian Highly Enriched Uranium."]
Proposals to Eliminate Civilian Use of HEU
Many national governments are beginning to call for the elimination of HEU in the civilian sphere. Indeed, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has called on countries "to minimize, and eventually eliminate, the use of high enriched uranium in peaceful nuclear applications."[11] At the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, the opening statement from Kyrgyzstan noted that "the Kyrgyz Republic believes this Review Conference should consider means to enhance the security of existing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, while consolidating them, reducing their size, and moving toward the elimination of the use of highly enriched uranium in the civilian nuclear sector."[12] This call was taken up by other countries, with Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden submitted a working paper entitled "Combating the risk of nuclear terrorism by reducing the civilian use of highly enriched uranium" in an effort to seek an international consensus on this issue. Norway has been particularly active in this regard, issuing a Position Paper at the Review Conference that called for the Conference to adopt "a moratorium on the production and use of [civilian] highly enriched uranium (HEU), like the moratorium on the production of weapons grade material declared by certain [nuclear weapons states]. The long-term objective should be the establishment of a total ban."[13] Norway reiterated this call in its statement to the IAEA General Conference in September 2005, as well as calling for the IAEA to develop guidelines for the management of HEU in the civilian sector. The U.S. statement, too, called to "phase-out the commercial use of highly enriched uranium," a policy the United States has been promoting since 1992, when it restricted exports of HEU in order to promote conversion to LEU. [For more on U.S. HEU export policy and recent changes, see "Despite Nuclear Terrorism Risks, Congress Relaxes HEU Export Controls."] The Norwegian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency are planning to hold a symposium on the minimization of HEU in the civilian nuclear sector in mid-June 2006, in order to examine both technical and policy issues related to HEU reduction.
Medical organizations in several countries have expressed interest in halting production of medical isotopes with use of HEU. In May 2008, the Malaysian Medical Association unanimously passed a resolution titled "Eliminating Highly Enriched Uranium from Radiopharmaceutical Production."
Need for a Coordinated International Approach
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Current programs that reduce the use of HEU are laudable, but piecemeal efforts. Many uses, such as pulsed reactors, critical assemblies, and reactors for naval propulsion, are not covered by the current programs. Indeed, there is no current, accurate, consolidated global inventory of HEU in civilian use that would allow states to prioritize their activities in this sphere. This is critical both in the short term, so that security upgrades are first initiated where they are most urgent, as well as in the long run, in order to locate all of the HEU that should be consolidated into safe and secure storage, as well as for decisions regarding which reactors to convert to LEU and which to shut down. Consolidating material and activities that require high levels of security demands the macro perspective that such a database would make possible. Furthermore, it would help states to ensure that they are not expending time and money to remove materials from one site and leaving yet more vulnerable materials in some nearby location.
An international approach
is also needed to make HEU reduction programs attractive to all states. For
example, if one state funds conversion of a medical isotope production reactor
while another does not, the latter may have a financial advantage that gives it
an incentive to avoid conversion. Yet more problematic, there is no guarantee
that if a country converts its reactors to LEU, a neighboring country will not
commence a new type of nuclear activity using HEU on its borders. Current
research into future reactor designs suggests that none of the future generation
power reactors would benefit from the use of HEU; nor is there any evidence that
HEU is necessary in future research or other reactors. Laudably, Russian
officials announced in 2005 that new floating nuclear plants will use LEU fuels.[20] However, Germany launched a new research reactor in 2003 that uses HEU fuel,
despite international protests and scientific studies indicating that an
LEU-fueled reactor would have allowed for the same research, while Russia
continues to contemplate construction of icebreakers that use HEU fuel. [For more, see "Russia: Floating Reactors"
and
"Russia: Nuclear-Powered Icebreakers"] Only an
international agreement to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of HEU will
ensure that countries do not build any such new reactors. [For more, see "International Politics of Civilian HEU
Elimination"]
Sources:
[1] Committee on Science and Technology for
Countering Terrorism, Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and
Technology in Countering Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Academy Press,
2002), pp. 40, 45, as cited in Charles Ferguson and William Potter, eds., The
Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism, p.
132.
[2] See David Albright and Kimberly
Kramer, "Stockpiles still growing," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 60, No. 6 (November/December 2004), pp. 14-16,
http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/ bulletin_albright_kramer.pdf; and
David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, ISIS Civil HEU Watch: Tracking
Inventories of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium, Revised August 2005, ISIS
Website,
<http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/end2003/civil_heu_watch2005.pdf>.
[3] Office of Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration,
"RERtr Program Project Execution Plan," February 16,
2004.
[4] Chinese exports consist of
approximately 1 kg. of 90% HEU fuel for use in Miniature Neutron Source type
reactors. Sources: Greg Webb, "Nigeria Commissions Research Reactor; HEU-Fueled
Facility Goes Against U.S.-Led Nonproliferation Effort," Global Security
Newswire, October 1, 2004,
<http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004/10/1/255a6161-b010-4711-a111-b12697bedd56.html>;
Ann MacLachlan, "Operators of small reactors to meet to discuss conversion to
LEU fuel," NuclearFuel, April 25, 2005, p. 5; "Research Reactors"
Briefing/Information Paper, December 2004, World Nuclear Association Website,
<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf61.htm>;
Judith Miller, "U.S. is Holding up Peking Atom Talks," New York Times,
September 19, 1982; Michael Brenner, "People's Republic of China," in William
Potter, ed., International Nuclear Trade and Nonproliferation, 1990, p.
253; and Leonard Spector, Nuclear Ambitions, 1990, p. 274, as cited in
Steven Dolley, "China's Record of Proliferation Misbehavior," September 29,
1997, Nuclear Control Institute Website,
<http://www.nci.org/i/ib92997.htm>.
[5] "Promoting Nuclear Security: What the IAEA is doing," IAEA Website,
<http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/nuclsecurity.pdf>.
[6] Ibid.
[7] "DOE Needs to Take Action to
Further Reduce the Use of Weapons-Usable Uranium in Civilian Research
Reactors," GAO-04-807, July 2004,
<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04807.pdf>.
[8] "NNSA: Working to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism," NNSA, January 2009, <http://nnsa.energy.gov/news/print/982.htm>. Also see Tom Wander, director of the DOE's Materials Consolidation and Conversion
program, private communication, July 14, 2005, as cited in Alexander Glaser and
Frank N. von Hippel, "Global Cleanout: Reducing the Threat of HEU-Fueled
Nuclear Terrorism," Arms Control Today, January/February 2006,
available online at:
<http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_01-02/JANFEB-heuFeature.asp>.
[9] For information on the U.S. program, see
"Reducing Excess Stockpiles: U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium
Disposition" in Securing the Bomb 2005, at
<http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/reducing/heudispose.asp>.
[10] "DOE to Remove 200 Metric Tons
of Highly Enriched Uranium from U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile," DOE Press
Release, November 7, 2005,
<http://www.energy.gov/print/2617.htm>.
[11] Mohamed ElBaradei statement, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
2005 Review Conference, United Nations, New York, May 2, 2005, from IAEA
website,
<http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2005/NPtrevCon.pdf>.
[12] Statement by H.E. Nurbek Jeenbaev, Permanent Representative of the Kyrgyz
Republic to the UN at the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on
the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York, May 3, 2005),
<http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/statements/npt03kyrgyz.pdf>.
[13] Norwegian Position Paper, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
2005 Review Conference, May 5, 2005.
[14] For more details, see William C. Potter and Elena Sokova, "Illicit Nuclear
Trafficking in the NIS: What's New? What's True?" Nonproliferation Review,<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol09/92/92potsok.pdf>, Vol. 9, No. 2
(Summer 2002), pp. 112-120.
[15] "Sotrudniki MAGATE posetyat Sukhumi dlya izucheniya radiatsionnoy
obstanovki," Interfax, 21 May 2001.
[16] Tina
Tskhovrebashvili, "Abkhazskiy 'proyekt mankhetten,'" Vremya novostey, 23
May 2001, p. 6; in "Phisical [sic] Protections of N.M.," Yadernyye
materialy, No. 21, 31 May 2001.
[17] Visit by Dr.
William Potter to Russian Nuclear Facilities, May
1996.
[18] "IAEA experts
inspected Abkhazia," Bellona Website, <http://www.bellona.no>, 20
September 2005.
[19] CNS interview with IAEA
official, 10 February 2006.
[20] Interview of Valentin Ivanov, Russian State Duma Deputy, November
8, 2005; interview of Rosatom Nuclear Power Department Head Valery Rachkov,
November 18, 2005; Vyacheslav Belyayev and Konstantin Leontyev,
Reactor Out to Sea, Nuclear Engineering International, Vol. 49, No. 594
(January 2004), also states that the KLT-40S will use ceramic metal fuel and
<20% enriched uranium, meeting nuclear non-proliferation requirements.
[21] "National Nuclear Security Administration Has Improved the Security of Reactors in its Global Research Reactor Program, but Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Concerns," GAO Report GAO-09-949, September 2009, www.gao.gov/ new.items/ d09949.pdf.
Websites:
Office of Global Threat Reduction, U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration website, <http://nnsa.energy.gov/nuclear_nonproliferation/1550.htm>.
"Global Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Stocks: Summary Tables and Charts," Institute for Science and International Security, September 7, 2005, <http://isis-online.org/global_stocks/end2003/summary_global_stocks.pdf>.
International Panel on Fissile Materials website, <http://www.fissilematerials.org>.
"Research Reactors" Briefing/Information Paper, May 2007, World Nuclear Association website, <http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf61.htm>.
"Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) Program," NIS Nuclear and Missile Database, NTI website, <http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/ russia/forasst/doe/rertr.htm>.
"Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors," Argonne National Laboratory website, <http://www.rertr.anl.gov>.
"Russia: Overview of the US-Russian HEU-LEU Program," NIS Nuclear and Missile Database, NTI website, <http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/ fissmat/heudeal/overview.htm>.
"2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," United Nations website, <http://www.un.org/events/npt2005>.
Nuclear Terrorism Tutorial, NTI website, <http://www.nti.org/h_learnmore/nuctutorial/index.html>.
Articles and Reports:
Proposed U.S. legislation "To promote the production of molybdenum-99 in the United States for medical isotope production, and to condition and phase out the export of highly enriched uranium for the production of medical isotopes," introduced in the House of Representatives on July 21, 2009 by Rep. Markey of Massachusetts, <thomas.loc.gov/ cgi-bin/ query/ z?c111: H.R.+3276:>.
"National Nuclear Security Administration Has Improved the Security of Reactors in its Global Research Reactor Program, but Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Concerns," GAO Report GAO-09-949, September 2009, <http://www.gao.gov/ new.items/ d09949.pdf>
International Medical Isotope Summit Communiqué, June 15, 2009. <http://www.nti.org/db/heu/SNM_Communique.pdf>
Medical and nonproliferation experts group letter to Congress, "Medical and Nonproliferation Groups Unite to Confront Dire Shortage of Medical Isotopes; Millions of Americans May Lose Access to Treatment & Diagnosis of Cancer, Heart Disease;Congress Urged to Expedite Domestic Isotope Production but Avoid Bomb-Grade Uranium," June 15, 2009. <http://www.nti.org/db/heu/Expert_letter.pdf>
Letter from Covidien to Nuclear Medicine Professionals regarding Mo-99 shortage, May 2009, <http://www.asnc.org/imageuploads/Covidien_Mo99_Supply_Update052209.pdf>. The letter provides additional information on the global Mo 99 supply and generator production process.
Andrew Einstein, "Breaking America's Dependence on Imported Molybdenum," Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging, March 2009, <http://imaging.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/full/2/3/369>.
Medical Isotope Production Without Highly Enriched Uranium, National Academy of Sciences, February 2009, <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12569>.
Future of the Nuclear Security Environment in 2015: Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, February 2009, <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12590>.
Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2008 (Cambridge, MA and Washington, D.C.: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, November 2008), <http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/cnwm_home.asp>.
"Highly Enriched Uranium in Pharmaceutical Production," resolution passed by the California Medical Association, October 6, 2008.
"Eliminating Highly Enriched Uranium From Radiopharmaceutical Production," resolution passed by the Malaysian Medical Association, June 2008.
Bill Williams and Tilman A. Ruff, "Getting Nuclear-bomb Fuel Out Of Radiopharmaceuticals," The Lancet, March 2008, pp. 795-797, <http://www.thelancet.com/>.
Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew G. McKinzie, "Detecting Nuclear Smuggling," Scientific American, March 2008, <http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=detecting-nuclear-smuggling>. Also, see information on NRDC's Petition for Rulemaking to Ban Future Civil Use of Highly Enriched Uranium.
Cristina Hansell (Chuen), "Developing HEU Guidelines," paper presented at RERTR-2007 International Meeting, September 2007.
IPFM Global Fissile Material Report 2007: Developing the technical basis for policy initiatives to secure and irreversibly reduce stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, October 2007, International Panel on Fissile Materials website, <http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/gfmr07.pdf>.
Steven Aftergood and Frank von Hippel, "The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration: Transparency Deferred but not Denied," Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2007, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol14/141/141aftergood.pdf>.
Philipp Bleek, "Global Cleanout: An Emerging Approach to the Civil Nuclear Material Threat," (Cambridge, MA and Washington, D.C.: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, September 2004), <http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/ documents/bleekglobalcleanout.pdf>.
Cristina Chuen and William C. Potter, "The Oslo Symposium: On The Road To HEU Minimization," CNS website, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/060822.htm>.
Cristina Chuen, "Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Terrorism: Decreasing the Availability of HEU," CNS website, May 2005, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/050506.htm>.
Robert L. Civiak, "Closing the Gaps: Securing High Enriched Uranium in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe," May 2002, p. 9, Federation of American Scientists website, <http://www.fas.org/ssp/docs/ 020500-heu/index.html>.
Charles Ferguson and William Potter, eds., The Four Faces of Nuclear
Terrorism (Abindgdon, Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge, June 2005). Excerpts
available at:
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/books/4faces.htm>.
Alexander Glaser and Frank N. von Hippel, "Global Cleanout: Reducing
the Threat of HEU-Fueled Nuclear Terrorism," Arms Control Today,
January/February 2006, available online at:
<http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_01-02/JANFEB-heuFeature.asp>.
Morten Bremer Maerli and Lars van Dassen, "Eliminating Excessive Stocks of Highly Enriched Uranium," Pugwash Issue Brief, Vol. No. 1 (April 2005), available at: <http://www.pugwash.org/publication/ pb/2005brief.6.pdf>.
Frank von Hippel, "A Comprehensive Approach to Elimination of Highly-Enriched-Uranium From All Nuclear-Reactor Fuel Cycles," Science and Global Security, No. 12 (2004),<http:// www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/pdf/von_Hippel_SGS_137-164_1.pdf>.
Scott Parrish, "Despite Nuclear Terrorism Risks, Congress Relaxes HEU Export Controls," CNS website, August 2005, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/050804.htm>.
U.S. Department of Energy, "Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking A Balance," January 2001. Available on Federation of American Scientists website at: <http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/heu/index.html>.
U.S. Government Accountability Office, DOE Needs to Take Action to Further Reduce the Use of Weapons-Usable Uranium in Civilian Research Reactors, GAO-04-807, July 2004, <http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04807.pdf>.
This material is
produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not
necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents.
Copyright © 2008 by MIIS.
