Overview
	Technical Background
	The Threat
	Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials
	Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling
	Stabilizing Employment for Nuclear Personnel
	Monitoring Stockpiles
Ending Further Production   Plutonium Production Reactor Shutdown   Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty
	Reducing Stockpiles

 

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Previous Publications
	Funding for U.S. Efforts to Improve Controls Over Nuclear Weapons, Materials, and Expertise Overseas: Recent Developments and Trends February2007 Readthe Full Report (1.5M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb 2006 The latest report in our series, from May 2006, finds that even though the gap between the threat of nuclear terrorism and the response has narrowed in recent years, there remains an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb, turning a modern city into a smoking ruin. Offering concrete steps to confront that danger, the report calls for world leaders to launch a fast-paced global coalition against nuclear terrorism focused on locking down all stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials worldwide as rapidly as possible. Read the Executive Summary (379K PDF) or the Full Report (1.7M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives Our May 2005 report finds that while the United States and other countries laid important foundations for an accelerated effort to prevent nuclear terrorism in the last year, sustained presidential leadership will be needed to win the race to lock down the world’s nuclear stockpiles before terrorists and thieves can get to them. Read the Executive Summary (281 K) or the Full Report (1.9M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action Building on the previous years' reports, this 2004 NTI-commissioned report grades current efforts and recommends new actions to more effectively prevent nuclear terrorism. It finds that programs to reduce this danger are making progress, but there remains a potentially deadly gap between the urgency of the threat and the scope and pace of efforts to address it. Download the Full Report (1.2 M PDF) Выписки из доклада по-русски (423K PDF)
	Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan 2003 report published by Harvard and NTI measures the progress made in keeping nuclear weapons and materials out of terrorist hands, and outlines a comprehensive plan to reduce the danger. Download the Full Report (2.7M PDF)
	Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action 2002 report co-published by Harvard and NTI outlines seven urgent steps to reduce the threat of stolen nuclear weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists or hostile states. Read the Full Report (516K PDF)

Ending Further Production

Plutonium Production Reactor Shutdown

Status

Project history. Russian experts first requested U.S. assistance with shutting down production of weapons plutonium in 1992.  After extended discussions, a U.S.-Russian agreement was signed in 1994, under which Russia pledged to shut the three remaining plutonium production reactors by 2000, "proceeding from the understanding that replacement sources of thermal and electric energy should be developed on the same schedule."[3]  It was agreed that shutting these reactors down entirely was the best approach, in part because they are perhaps the least safe reactors in the world.  These reactors are very old (having started operation some 40 years ago), and their design is the one from which Soviet experts learned lessons in order to devise the Chernobyl design.[4]

The United States agreed to pay for some feasibility studies on different options for replacement energy, but not to pay for building replacement power plants.  Russia, on the other hand, took the view that shutting the reactors without replacing the heat and power they provided would leave thousands of people in the cold and the dark, and was not an option – and that Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM) did not have the funds to build alternative power sources.  Thus, despite the agreement, it appeared likely that unless some means could be found to finance alternative power sources, the reactors would not shut down.

After the original feasibility studies concluded that building replacement fossil-fueled power plants might cost as much as a billion dollars – an amount neither government was willing to spend – attention shifted to the option of converting the plutonium production reactors to a new fuel cycle that would produce far less plutonium in the spent fuel (of far lower isotopic quality), and whose spent fuel could be stored for long periods without reprocessing, effectively cutting off further separation of weapons-usable plutonium from these reactors.  The cost estimate for this approach was in the range of $160 million, and the Russian government was to pay half the cost, putting U.S. costs at $80 million.  After extensive negotiations, a modified agreement was signed in 1997, which called for the cores of these reactors to be converted by the end of the year 2000.[5]  From the outset, the core conversion effort had largely been financed by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Nunn-Lugar program, but implemented by DOE – which provoked numerous interagency struggles.  Eventually, management of the effort was transferred from DOE to the Department of Defense.[6]

Unfortunately, the approach to converting the cores of these reactors that the U.S. and Russian teams focused on originally had serious technical flaws.  The approach involved using thousands of pocket-sized HEU fuel elements in these reactors, which a number of nonproliferation advocates (including the author) criticized as raising additional risks of theft of weapons-usable nuclear material.  In addition, the approach involved alternating fuel and absorber elements in the reactor fuel channels, in a way that created a very complex distribution of power and heat within the reactors, including "hot spots" at the ends of the fuel elements whose temperature was expected to be close to the boiling point of the reactors' water coolant.  GOSATOMNADZOR (GAN), the Russian nuclear regulatory agency – whose deputy chairman had previously been the manager of the reactors at Seversk and had overseen their post-Chernobyl safety upgrades – repeatedly criticized this approach as unsafe (despite the significant safety upgrades that were to be done in parallel with core conversion) and the analysis the agency was being provided as inadequate.  The U.S. and Russian teams dismissed these concerns and continued with this design.

During this period, the estimated costs of core conversion more than doubled, and after the 1998 financial crisis, Russia concluded that it could not pay its half, leaving the U.S. government with a projected bill for conversion in the range of $335 million, four times the previous estimate.  Moreover, it was clear that conversion would not be accomplished until long after the 2000 deadline.  At the same time, with GAN expressing concern over whether it was safe to continue operating these reactors at all, and forcing them to reduce their power to below 80% of maximum capacity to improve safety, it was unclear how long these reactors would be permitted to continue to operate.

MINATOM, faced with the possibility that some $300 million of the U.S. government's money would be spent on converting reactors that might have to be shut down shortly thereafter for safety reasons – with no money then available to build replacements – reversed its earlier opposition to replacing these nuclear reactors with fossil fueled plants.  In the winter of 1999–2000, MINATOM proposed going back to the idea of shutting the reactors down and building fossil power plants instead, arguing that this could be done for a cost no larger than the $335 million then slated for core conversion.  (The large reduction in cost from the previous billion-dollar estimates for replacement power apparently resulted in substantial part from a reduction in the estimate of how much heat and power was needed, which made it possible to refurbish an existing, partially completed power plant at Seversk rather than building a new one.)  As the two governments were considering whether to abandon core conversion in favor of shutdown of these reactors, the core conversion technical team finally abandoned its flawed design and began developing a new approach without the complex alternating fuel and absorber elements, and using proliferation-resistant low-enriched fuel.[7]

After roughly a year of discussions, by the winter of 2000–2001 it had been agreed that fossil replacement was the best approach for Seversk.  During 2001 it was finally agreed that the same was true for Zheleznogorsk, despite the need to build an entirely new coal power plant there, and the associated high cost.

But by 2001, the Bush administration had come to office, and some of its senior officials were deeply skeptical of the plutonium production reactor shutdown effort.[8]  Republicans in the House of Representatives, who had been willing to support spending DOD money to modify unsafe nuclear reactors, argued that it was somehow unacceptable for DOD money to be spent building new fossil fueled power plants to achieve the same objective:  namely, reducing the security threat to the United States by ending further Russian plutonium production.  They succeeded in prohibiting the expenditure of DOD funds for fossil-fueled replacement power plants.  Thus, much of 2000 and 2001 were effectively wasted in internal wrangling in the United States.

In December 2001, the Bush administration's review of threat reduction programs was finally completed, and it endorsed the effort to shut down production of weapons plutonium in Russia and directed that it be transferred from DOD to DOE, to resolve the congressional concern over expenditure of military money on fossil power plants.  Unfortunately, however, DOD lawyers concluded that the funds DOD had available for the project could not actually be transferred to DOE to begin work until Congress authorized the transfer, and this was not done until the fiscal year (FY) 2003 defense authorization bill was signed into law in December 2002; after further internal delays, DOE finally received the funds and was able to begin spending them in May, 2003 (more than 16 months after the Bush administration review directed that this transfer be made).  While Congress had provided DOE $10 million to keep the effort alive in an emergency supplemental passed in the summer of 2002, the reality is that most of 2002 also ended up as a wasted year for this effort.[9]  To be fair, Russia was also contributing to delays during this period, with difficulties over determining exactly how much heat and power was needed and why, problems with access to the sites and with implementing arrangements, and the like.

Progress began to accelerate in early 2003.  On March 12, Abraham and Rumiantsev signed the new agreement, committing both sides to move the project forward; Russian Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov had approved the reactor shut-down earlier in the year.[10]  U.S. teams were finally allowed to visit the sites to begin fleshing out the planned work in more detail, and in May, DOE selected Washington Group International and Raytheon Technical Services as the U.S. contractors for the estimated $466 million project, whose role will be to oversee Russian contractors who will do the actual design and construction work.  Initial work on safety improvements for the period while the reactors are still running got underway.

Nevertheless, the wrangling within the United States and between the United States and Russia has led to substantial delays:  while the estimate as of early 2001 had been that the Seversk reactors could be closed in 2005 and the Zheleznogorsk plant in 2006, in the intervening two years the schedule for the Seversk reactors has slipped three years (to 2008) and the schedule for Zheleznogorsk by five years (to 2011).[11]  Overall, in the nine years since the first agreement was signed, the schedule for Seversk has slipped 8 years and for Zheleznogorsk, 11 years; in other words, no real progress has been made toward bringing the day closer when production of weapons plutonium in Russia will finally end.  As of mid-2003, in part because of the delays in transferring funds to DOE, neither the U.S. contractors nor the Russian subcontractors for building the fossil plants yet had actual contracts in place allowing them to begin work.[12]  

Current plans.  Currently, the project for eliminating production of weapons plutonium in Russia has three parts:

• The Seversk project would refurbish a 1953 coal-fired heat and electricity plant, providing 1810 megawatts-thermal (MWt) of replacement energy, for approximately $172 million.[13]  The project is expected to take five years, allowing the Seversk reactors to shut in 2008.  DOE expects to have one-quarter of the project completed by the end of FY2004.[14]  If, as DOE projects, the reactors would continue to operate for another 15 years (to 2018) in the absence of this shutdown program,[15] then 10 years of plutonium production would be avoided by this project.  The two reactors at Seversk are capable of producing a ton of plutonium each year at maximum capacity, but as noted earlier, the Russian nuclear regulatory agency has limited them to operating below 80% of capacity.  The amount of plutonium whose production would be avoided by this program is therefore in the range of 8 tons – meaning that the effort will cost some $20-$30 million per ton of plutonium whose production is avoided.

• The second part of the effort is the Zheleznogorsk project, which would require building an entirely new power plant to provide 765 MWt, at an estimated cost of $294 million.[16]  The plant site proposed by the Russian side is outside the closed city, requiring piping to bring the heat into the town, contributing to the high cost.  This project, which will replace the power from only one reactor, rather than two, is slated for completion in 2011.  If DOE's projection that the reactors would otherwise run until 2018 is correct, and this schedule cannot be accelerated or the cost reduced, this project would avoid the production of less than 3 tons of plutonium – a cost of over $100 million per ton of plutonium avoided.  It is possible, however, that this effort could be accelerated.  Construction of a coal-fired power plant typically only requires 4 years (once all permits are available and construction can begin) if adequate funding is available – and DOE has acknowledged that the 2011 date is determined in part by the limited planned pace of funding for the project.[17]  Moreover, a 1999 study by the Moscow-based Center for Energy Efficiency concluded that the requirements for replacement heat in both Seversk and Zheleznogorsk could be greatly reduced with cost-effective efficiency improvements – to the point that it might be possible to meet the needs in Zheleznogorsk by upgrading existing fossil facilities, rather than building an entirely new plant.[18]  If that conclusion proved correct, the cost and time required to shut down the reactor could be greatly reduced.

• Since these reactors have serious safety deficiencies and will continue to operate for a number of years, the third major part of the project is focused on interim safety upgrades. In FY 2002, U.S. experts visited all three reactors, discussed safety upgrades proposed by Russian experts, and prioritized them.  The upgrades are expected to be completed in 2005, at a total cost of $21 million.[19]

Impact of shutdown.  The shutdown of these reactors will mean the loss of thousands of jobs at the reactors and their associated reprocessing plants and related facilities.  In July 2002, then-First Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Lev Ryabev said that the most "acute" problem in downsizing Russia's complex was Zheleznogorsk, where the closure of the reactor would lead to the loss of 5-7,000 jobs, and other opportunities in the city were limited.  Ryabev predicted the closure of the reactors in Seversk would lead to the loss of 5-6,000 additional jobs.[20]  Layoffs on this scale can pose significant proliferation risks that must be addressed.

Monitoring of plutonium produced before shutdown.  The 1997 agreement on eliminating production of weapons-grade plutonium gave both sides the right to verify that shutdown reactors remained shut down, and gave the United States the right to monitor the plutonium produced in the three still operating reactors after January 1, 1995.  The monitoring arrangements specified in the agreement allowed U.S. monitors to verify the ratios of certain isotopes in this plutonium, to confirm that the plutonium being observed came from the kind of low-burnup fuel used in these reactors, and was newly produced.[21]

Gaining agreement on implementation of monitoring of this stored plutonium has proved problematic, however.  The specific isotopic content of plutonium produced in these reactors is considered classified information in Russia (though it differs from the plutonium actually included in Russian nuclear warheads, due to the increased burnup since the reactors stopped producing plutonium that was to be used in warheads).  Hence, to be able to measure the isotopic ratios specified in the agreement would require an arrangement where the monitoring equipment simply provided a "yes" or "no" and not the detailed results of the measurement – what has come to be called an authenticated attribute measurement system with an information barrier.[22]  Russian officials were concerned over whether classified information would nonetheless be compromised – and were unwilling to allow the monitoring to begin until they were confident that the United States would fulfill its obligation to provide the funding for the conversion or replacement of these reactors.  During 2002, U.S. monitors were allowed their first visit to the vaults where this plutonium is stored, but were not yet allowed to take the full range of measurements;[23] with the new agreement finally signed, however, and funding beginning to flow, the full monitoring arrangement is expected to be implemented shortly.

Budget

See budget table

The total projected cost for the three projects involved in eliminating Russian weapons plutonium is $487 million.  With $14 million appropriated to DOE in FY 2002, $49 million appropriated in FY 2003, and $73 million in prior-year balances from DOD transferred to DOE in FY 2003, the total remaining cost for FY 2004 and beyond is estimated at $351 million.  Unfortunately, the $34.2 million budgeted on the first round of shutdown efforts and the conversion effort – funded mostly by DOD, but with additional support from DOE and the Department of State – did not result in progress that is applicable to completing the project now.   

Key Issues and Recommendations

Slow schedule for reactor shutdown.  As noted in the text, the currently proposed schedule for the plutonium production reactor shutdown project is slow, with the Seversk reactors not scheduled for closure until 2008, and the Zheleznogorsk reactor not scheduled for closure until 2011.  The longer these projects take, the closer the shutdown time comes to the date these reactors would shut down in any case.

• Recommendation: DOE should work with Russia to seek to accelerate the efforts to shut both the Seversk reactors and the Zheleznogorsk reactor.  DOE is already pushing in this direction, with plans to include terms in the contracts to Russian firms building the fossil plants that would offer incentives for faster progress.[24]

• Recommendation: DOE should work with Russian experts to confirm whether cost-effective energy efficiency improvements could make it possible to shut down the Zheleznogorsk reactor by refurbishing existing facilities, rather than building new ones, and how much time and money could be saved by such an approach.

• Recommendation: DOE should work with Russian experts to determine whether costs could be reduced and the schedule accelerated by using the excess low-cost hydroelectric power available at Zheleznogorsk to provide replacement power and some portion of the replacement heat for the Zheleznogorsk reactor.

• Recommendation: DOE should request the budgets needed to shut these reactors as rapidly as practicable, rather than allowing program implementation to be delayed (and total costs to be increased) by funding the effort in small increments each year.

High cost per ton of plutonium avoided.  Any threat reduction project must be considered on the basis of whether the magnitude of the threat reduced is commensurate with the cost.  In the case of the Zheleznogorsk project in particular, a cost of over $100 million per ton of plutonium avoided – in an environment when Russia has roughly 170 tons of separated plutonium already – is very high by comparison to typical per-ton costs for securing plutonium and HEU in Russia, or for disposition of plutonium and HEU.

• Recommendation: As recommended above, DOE should attempt to accelerate these efforts and reduce their costs, both of which would improve the ratio of costs to tons of plutonium avoided.

• Recommendation: DOE should explore with Russia whether it is possible to shut down the reactors during the summer months, when their heat and power are in little demand.  This would significantly reduce the amount of plutonium produced each year before the reactors shut down, at very modest cost.  A U.S.-Russian meeting to discuss such possibilities is planned for the summer of 2003.[25]

• Recommendation: If DOE determines that the cost of the Zheleznogorsk project cannot be reduced, and the schedule cannot be accelerated, DOE should consider whether continuing the project is justified.  A possible alternative would be to allow this last reactor to live out its useful life and add the extra plutonium produced to the stockpile slated for disposition.

Potential proliferation risks of layoffs resulting from shutdown.  As noted in the text, nonproliferation success in this case will come with a nonproliferation price, in the form of the layoffs of over 10,000 nuclear workers, many of whom currently have access to weapons-usable nuclear material, and might be driven to consider theft during the period when they still have access but know they will be losing their job soon.

• Recommendation: The United States should work with Russia to focus an intensive job creation effort (from both MINATOM-funded and U.S.-funded programs) on job creation for the personnel to be laid off in these two cities.  This should become the focus of a significant fraction of the effort in the Nuclear Cities Initiative and the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention programs.

Links

FOOTNOTES