U.S. Department of Energy
U.S. Department of Energy Programs
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Programs in Russia:
- Nuclear Safety And Emergency Cooperation
- Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Transparency Implementation Program
- Elimination Of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production
- Russian Transition Initiatives (RTI)
- Initiatives For Proliferation Prevention (IPP)
- Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI)
- Warhead and Fissile Material Transparency (WFMT) Program
- HEU Purchase Agreement Transparency
- Nuclear Warhead Safety and Security Exchange (WSSX) Agreement
- Plutonium Production Reactor Agreement (PPRA)
- Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR)
- International Nuclear Export Control Program (INECP)
- Trilateral Initiative
- Material Protection, Control And Accounting (MPC&A)
- Russian Plutonium Disposition Program
NUCLEAR SAFETY AND EMERGENCY COOPERATION
Office of International Nuclear Safety (NA-23)
The mission of the International Emergency Management and Cooperation program is to promote sound policies for emergency communications, planning, and assistance. The program ensures that foreign governments, international organizations and U.S. embassies receive assistance in nuclear-related emergency management matters from DOE upon request. This includes assistance in preparing to respond to nuclear accidents/ incidents, developing emergency policy and planning infrastructure, and developing emergency operations facilities.
HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM (HEU) TRANSPARENCY IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAM
Office of International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation (NA-23)
The Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Transparency Implementation Program (TIP) is designed to monitor the processing of weapons-grade uranium (nominally enriched to 90 percent 235U) into low-enriched uranium (nominally less than 5 percent 235U) to be used as fuel for commercial power reactors as part of the 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement. The fundamental objectives of the program are to provide assurance that the HEU is derived from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons and then converted and diluted (down blended) into low enriched uranium (LEU). The LEU is then purchased by the United States and delivered to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) where it is sold to utilities and delivered to various fuel fabricators. The HEU TIP achieves these objectives through a combination of activities. These include monitoring visits to the Russian uranium processing facilities where monitors witness actual processing operations; use of portable non-destructive assay (NDA) instruments to confirm the presence of HEU in closed containers; use of the installed Blend Down Monitoring System (BDMS) equipment to continuously monitor the HEU to LEU down blending; review and analysis of nuclear material control and accountability documentation; and providing MinAtom accountability and control of documentation of LEU delivered to the United States.
At the May 2002 Summit in Moscow, President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin agreed to establish a joint experts group to develop proposals on near- and long-term bilateral and multilateral means to reduce inventories of HEU and plutonium (Pu). As part of this effort, the HEU TIP staff is supporting the effort and participating in the Nuclear Material Expert Group (comprised of DOE and MinAtom officials) to identify options to accelerate the reduction of HEU and Pu. HEU TIP is also closely involved in the development of working groups to carry out some of the recommendations proposed by the Expert Group.
ELIMINATION OF WEAPONS-GRADE PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION
Office of International Nuclear Safety (NA-23)
The Office of International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation conducts a cooperative effort with Russiato reduce the threat from weapons of mass destruction by stopping plutonium production. Three plutonium production reactors are still in operation in Russia, two located at Seversk and one at Zheleznogorsk. The three reactors have approximately 15 years of remaining lifetime and as a group could generate an additional 25 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium for the Russian stockpile. These reactors, although originally designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium, also provide heat and electricity required by the surrounding communities. The program is providing fossil-fueled energy plants to supply necessary heat and electricity to the surrounding communities in order to expedite the shut down of the reactors.
The Seversk ADE-4 and ADE-5 reactors will be shut down after approximately 60 months from the signing of the initial Seversk contract with Russia and the provision of U.S. assistance to commission heat and electric capacity of up to 1,560 gigacalories per hour of steam generation and 230 megawatts of electricity generation. Major activities will include:
1. Refurbishing or replacing existing coal-fired boilers,
2. Providing one new high pressure coal-fired boiler,
3. Replacing turbine generators,
4. Completing construction of the fuel supply system, and
5. Refurbishing the industrial heating unit and ancillary systems.
The Zheleznogorsk ADE-2 reactor will be shut down after approximately 96 months from the signing of the initial Zheleznogorsk contract with Russia and the provision of U.S. assistance to commission heat and electric capacity of up to 478 gigacalories per hour of steam generation and 117 megawatts of electricity generation by building a new fossil plant consisting of:
1. A co-generation boiler,
2. An extraction/condensing steam turbine,
3. Heating only boilers,
4. A fuel handling system, an ash removal system, environmental controls, and a hot water pipeline to connect the new plant with the district heating system.
The three plutonium production reactors will continue to operate until the fossil-replacement plants are completed. The reactors have deficiencies in the areas of design, equipment, materials and training and are considered to be the highest risk reactors in the world. High priority safety upgrades to these reactors are being expeditiously pursued to maximize their effect on safety.
RUSSIAN TRANSITION INITIATIVES (RTI)
Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NA-24)
The mission of the Russian Transition Initiatives (RTI) is to counter the proliferation and terrorism threat posed by "brain drain" from the weapons complex of the former Soviet Union, to which Russia is the primary heir. Neither states of proliferation concern nor sub-national groups, such as terrorist organizations, are able to pursue a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program entirely on their own. They need fuel cycle technologies in order to get fissile materials (or they need to buy or steal fissile materials), weapons design information and weapons assembly expertise. The Russian nuclear weapons complex, which is vastly oversized, decrepit, and starving for resources is still dangerously capable of performing its core functions, and is an obvious source for these inputs. The RTI program is comprised of two parts: the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) and the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI). Both programs work together to address the threat that the Russian and non-Russian NIS weapons complex poses as a potential source of WMD materials, technology and expertise.
Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP): The Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program seeks to redirect former Soviet weapons scientists towards peaceful, sustainable commercial pursuits. Through cooperative projects between former Soviet/New Independent States (NIS) weapons scientists, the U.S. National Laboratories, and U.S. industry, IPP strives to stabilize institutes, personnel and technology formerly dedicated to developing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Begun in 1994, the IPP program has matured from initially funding mostly research and development projects to focusing on commercially viable projects. These projects identify technologies that have market potential for profit to both the U.S. and NIS participants.
Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI): The Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI) is a nonproliferation partnership between the United States and Russia that aids in the planned downsizing of the Russian nuclear weapons complex. NCI helps to remove functions and equipment from the weapons complex, reduce the physical footprint, and create sustainable, alternative non-weapons work leading to the irreversible, transparent downsizing of the weapons complex. NCI continues to accomplish this mission by focusing on selected key strategies:
- developing physical and business infrastructure,
- helping establish sustainable enterprises, and
- introducing economic diversification models.
WARHEAD AND FISSILE MATERIAL TRANSPARENCY (WFMT) PROGRAM
Office of Nonproliferation Policy (NA-241)
The United States and Russia have affirmed their commitment to implement significant reductions and limit strategic nuclear warheads. The goal of the DOE/NNSA Warhead and Fissile Material Transparency (WFMT) program is to work cooperatively with Russia to develop and implement technical measures that can be applied at Russian nuclear weapons facilities to provide confidence that Russian nuclear weapons are being dismantled and that excess fissile materials, including those removed from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads, are not used again for weapons purposes.
The WFMT program includes the following elements:
HEU Purchase Agreement Transparency: The WFMT program is responsible for negotiating transparency measures under the 1993 Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement. The Office of Nonproliferation Policy (NA-241) is the policy lead for DOE/NNSA. A State Department official serves as the Chief HEU Transparency Negotiator and NA-241 provides the Deputy Chief HEU Transparency Negotiator.
Nuclear Warhead Safety and Security Exchange (WSSX) Agreement: The Agreement between the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation on the Exchange of Technical Information in the Field of Nuclear Warhead Safety and Security, more commonly referred to as the Warhead Safety and Security Exchange (WSSX) Agreement, was signed on December 16, 1994, for an initial five-year term. Signature of a Protocol by the U.S. Secretary of Energy and Minister of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (MinAtom) during the June 2000 Moscow Summit extended the WSSX Agreement for an additional five-year term.
Participants in the Agreement are DOE/NNSA and the Department of Defense (DOD) for the United States and MinAtom and the Ministry of Defense (MOD) for Russia. The Agreement provides for a useful exchange to verify technical information relating to warhead safety and security. The June 2000 extension incorporated into the Agreement ongoing DOE/NNSA/MinAtom laboratory-to-laboratory activities concerning the transparency associated with the dismantlement of nuclear weapons. As established under the original WSSX Agreement, a Joint Steering Committee and Joint Coordinating Group approve new lab-to-lab topics/projects for program technical exchange consideration and provide oversight to Agreement implementation. A representative from DOE/NNSA's Office of Defense Programs serves on the WSSX Joint Steering Committee and an NA-241 representative serves as the Co-Chair of the WSSX Joint Coordinating Group.
Plutonium Production Reactor Agreement (PPRA): The PPRA is a Government-to-Government agreement between the United States and Russia covering cooperation on plutonium production reactors. The PPRA requires that measures be implemented to assure that production reactors now shut down in both countries do not resume operation. Additionally, this Agreement facilitates the shut down of the last three operating Russian plutonium production reactors and provides for monitoring of the plutonium oxide produced from these operating reactors' spent fuel prior to shut down to ensure that it is not used in weapons. DOE/NNSA is the Executive Agent for all monitoring-related activities under the PPRA where monitoring visits are conducted at shutdown U.S. and Russian plutonium production reactors and Russian plutonium oxide storage facilities to monitor the non-weapon use of the plutonium. NA-241 is the DOE/NNSA representative to the U.S.-Russia PPRA Joint Implementation and Compliance Commission (JICC).
RUSSIAN RESEARCH REACTOR FUEL RETURN (RRRFR)
Office of Nonproliferation Policy (NA-241)
Beginning December 1999 and continuing to the present, representatives from the United States, the Russian Federation, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been discussing a new program to return to Russia Soviet- or Russian-supplied fuel currently stored at foreign research reactors. The primary goal of the Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) program is to advance U.S. nuclear nonproliferation objectives by eliminating stockpiles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and persuading eligible countries to convert their research reactors from HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel upon availability, qualification, and licensing of suitable LEU fuel.
Trilateral discussions among the United States, Russia, and the IAEA in Vienna have identified more than 20 research reactors in 17 countries that have Soviet- or Russian-supplied fuel.1 Most of these reactors use at least some HEU fuel, and most have stocks of both fresh and irradiated fuel that must be carefully stored and managed for many years to come. DOE/NNSA's goal is to help Russia develop a broad-based HEU minimization policy under which it would accept the return of spent and fresh HEU fuel that presents a proliferation or a terrorism threat from Soviet- or Russian-supplied foreign research reactors and develop new fuels that will allow conversion of such reactors to LEU. DOE/NNSA officials have led discussions with representatives from MinAtom and the IAEA on this issue, with the IAEA agreeing to provide technical and organizational support.
The first candidate for a pilot shipment of fuel back to Russia is Uzbekistan, whose government has expressed a strong interest in participation in the RRRFR program. On March 12, 2002, DOE/NNSA and Uzbekistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed an Agreement to facilitate cooperation between the parties for the return of Uzbekistan's Soviet- or Russian-supplied nuclear fuel to Russia. DOE/NNSA contemplates entering into similar agreements with other countries that seek to return their Soviet- or Russian-supplied nuclear fuel to Russia and commit to convert from HEU to LEU use.
INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR EXPORT CONTROL PROGRAM (INECP)
Office of Export Control Policy and Cooperation (NA-242)
Preventing the spread of nuclear materials, equipment, and technologies through nuclear export controls is a cornerstone of the international nuclear nonproliferation effort. DOE/NNSA's Office of Export Control Policy and Cooperation (NA-242), through its International Nuclear Export Control Program (INECP), works to promote export controls worldwide by encouraging effective multilateral export control regime participation and partnering with individual countries to strengthen national export controls. Our outreach to these countries is targeted to meet three key INECP goals:
- improving licensing procedures and practices,
- promoting industry compliance, and
- strengthening enforcement capabilities.
The large number of Russian nuclear enterprises, nuclear exports and assistance to other states, and size of the Russian nuclear expert community make Russia a top priority. INECP-Russian cooperation began with a September 1996 Letter of Cooperation between DOE and MinAtom, which highlighted the following four areas of cooperation:
a. scientific analysis of control lists of the nuclear multilateral export control regimes,
b. training in export control for the enterprises of MinAtom,
c. exchanges of experience and knowledge in seminars and consultations, and
d. development of internal compliance programs for MinAtom enterprises.
INECP cooperation with MinAtom is conducted at both the Federal level and by a unique partnering between U.S. National Laboratories and MinAtom's two Export Control Methodological Laboratories. Joint projects under these partnerships include publications designed to increase familiarization with nuclear and dual-use equipment, workshops to increase industry awareness of and compliance with national export controls, and technical exchanges between U.S. and Russian technical experts. These projects are implemented through agreements between Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, MinAtom's Institute for Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF). Cooperative agreements are also in place with the Kurchatov Institute and two Russian non-governmental organizations � the Center for Export Control and the PIR Center for Policy Studies.
NA-242 also holds regular bilateral exchanges on issues of strengthening and implementing national and multilateral export controls. INECP activities with MinAtom have yielded significant progress in ensuring the use of technical expertise and evaluation in export control procedures, standardizing internal export review procedures, and increasing industry compliance. INECP-MinAtom cooperation has grown to include a larger number of enterprises and research institutes, and cooperation has intensified especially in proliferation significant areas such as technology control, high-risk property management, and fuel enrichment technologies.
NA-242 is currently expanding its activities in Russia to include closer cooperation with Russia's export licensing agency, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT), as well as the Russian State Customs Committee. Intensifying cooperation with these agencies will further efforts to improve licensing procedures and enforcement capabilities.
The INECP in Russia has graduated from promoting and establishing the fundamentals of nuclear export control. By identifying next steps and strategic directions, as well as new technical areas of cooperation, and by broadening cooperation and overall INECP activities, NA-242 is reaching a new level of activity in Russia. This evolution of INECP activity will build upon these fundamental practices, intensify efforts to promote adherence to nuclear export control norms and work to ensure program sustainability.
Delays in funding from the Department of State (DOS) in 2002 caused much of INECP's planned work to be postponed. (DOS ultimately will fund $1.5 M of the $1.775 M worth of NA-242 projects proposed for FY 2002.) These delays have put the INECP in the position of not being able to act on momentum created through the years of program development and the growing level of cooperation with MinAtom. Instead, the program has been attempting to sustain the most sensitive aspects of the program in this fiscal year with DOS NIS funding from FY 2001 and $0.55 M from the DOE/NNSA budget.
TRILATERAL INITIATIVE
Office of International Safeguards (NA-243)
The United States, Russia, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been working over the last six years to develop a new regime for international verification of fissile materials in order to promote international confidence that excess materials subject to IAEA verification remain removed from weapons programs. A U.S.-Russian-IAEA joint working group has been charged with resolving technical, legal, and financing issues. The technical work continues to be focused on developing verification measures that the IAEA could be used to classified plutonium that would not disclose information related to nuclear weapons. A Model Verification Agreement (MVA) has been discussed and developed. In November 2001 the Russian side asked to defer further work on the MVA and associated Subsidiary Arrangements and Technical Criteria until outstanding issues related to symmetry between U.S. and Russian disposition plans could be addressed and questions regarding the use of Voluntary Offer Safeguards Agreements (VOAs) in lieu of the MVA are considered. In June 2002, the Russian side indicated that the Russian Government wanted to consider the original mandate to the Trilateral Initiative working group complete, and to apply the experience gained by the working group to the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) monitoring and inspection approach. The technical work has continued, including a technical workshop at the JRC ISPRA research laboratory in Italy and the beginning of joint development work on an attribute verification system with information barrier in Russia.
MATERIAL PROTECTION, CONTROL AND ACCOUNTING (MPC&A)
Office of International Material Protection and Emergency Cooperation (NA-25)
Since 1993, the United States and Russia have worked together to prevent the theft or loss of nuclear material. This joint effort to improve nuclear materials protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) directly addresses a key threat to global security. MPC&A improvements are designed to keep nuclear materials secured within the facilities that are authorized to contain them, and constitute the first line of defense against nuclear smuggling, which could lead to nuclear proliferation and/or nuclear terrorism. In 2001, the Program expanded to include the Second Line of Defense (SLD) Program, which provides a systems approach to the detection, identification and interdiction of nuclear and radioactive materials at airports, seaports and vehicle crossings around the world. This expands the capabilities of border enforcement agencies to detect and interdict illicit trafficking in nuclear and radiological materials as a part of a multi-layered defense in depth strategy.
RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM DISPOSITION PROGRAM
Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (NA-26)
As part of the U.S. Government's nonproliferation strategy, the U.S. initiated a dialog with Russia to address the potential threat of diversion of Russian surplus weapon-grade plutonium. This resulted in the U.S. and Russia signing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Cooperation Agreement, which provides for conducting tests and demonstrations of proposed plutonium disposition technologies, and the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, which commits each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium. The mission of this program is to support U.S. Government efforts to dispose of this surplus Russian weapon-grade plutonium, and any additional Russian plutonium that may be added to the program in the future.