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Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials
BN-350 Spent Fuel Security
Status
The BN-350 reactor in Kazakhstan |
In 1997, the U.S. and Kazakh governments agreed to undertake a joint program to improve safety and security for the plutonium-bearing spent fuel from the BN-350 reactor at Aktau, Kazakhstan. By the end of 2001, all of this material had been inventoried, put under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, and placed in storage canisters which are large, heavy, and highly radioactive, making the fuel elements far more difficult to steal. The United States and Kazakhstan have now agreed that the fuel will be shipped to the area of the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site for storage, and the United States is designing and purchasing dual-purpose transport and storage casks for that purpose.[1] |
The program has also provided physical protection upgrades to secure the material in the BN-350 spent fuel pond (completed in 1999).[2]The program is being implemented by the U.S. Department of Energy, with Argonne National Laboratory taking the lead.[3]In addition to the spent fuel security project, the two sides have also cooperated to shut down the BN-350 reactor (reactor operations stopped in 1999 so no more plutonium-bearing spent fuel is being produced), and are now working to safely decommission it.[4] At the start of the project, this spent fuel posed a significant proliferation hazard, for several reasons:
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The BN-350 spent fuel contains nearly 3 metric tons of plutonium.[5]
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This plutonium is better than standard weapon-grade plutonium (>90% Pu-239), although the plutonium is embedded in some 300 metric tons of spent fuel (hence approximately 1% by weight), and would require extensive chemical processing to recover for use in a bomb.[6]
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Much of this spent fuel has been cooling for so long, and was so lightly irradiated to begin with, that the individual fuel assemblies are no longer radioactive enough to be "self-protecting" against theft – thieves could load it into a boat and take it away without necessarily receiving radiation doses that would immediately be incapacitating. (When a number of fuel assemblies are placed together in a difficult-to-open canister, as has now been done, the radioactivity from the total package is more intense, providing a greater barrier to theft.)
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The reactor and its spent fuel are located on the shore of the Caspian Sea, across from Iran.
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Iran has close links with the city of Aktau, where the reactor is located, and has tried to establish a consulate there since 1993.[7]
The initial phase of this project, including an accurate inventory of the spent fuel, placement of the material under IAEA safeguards, and canning of the fuel, was completed in June 2001.[8]The fuel was placed in some 2,800 one-ton, 4-meter-long steel canisters, with more radioactive and less radioactive fuel packaged together, so that each canister would be self-protecting – a "heavy, hot, and highly radioactive package that is far more difficult to steal," according to DOE’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.[9]The canisters were manufactured at a former torpedo factory in Kazakhstan, as part of a Nunn-Lugar defense conversion project.[10]
Installing monitoring systems for plutonium-bearing BN-350 fuel. |
As a result of this work, the immediate nonproliferation concern at the site has largely been addressed. (In addition, the hundreds of kilograms of fresh highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel for the reactor that was also located at the site have been removed to the Ulba fuel processing facility at Ust-Kamenogorsk for blending to low-enriched uranium (LEU), in a project financed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative.)[11]The canisters, however, were only designed to maintain their integrity in the spent fuel pool for a limited time. Hence, the United States and Kazakhstan, after reviewing a number of options for longer-term storage, decided to place the fuel in dual-purpose transport and storage casks and ship it to the the former Soviet nuclear weapon testing ground at Semipalatinsk. Transport is reportedly slated to begin in 2004 and to be completed by 2007. |
[12]Due to the complexity of the equipment required for the long-term program, the casks must be specially designed.The U.S. government will cover the design, purchase, and licensing of the casks, and will also be in charge of transport.[13]The Kazakh government will oversee maintenance thereafter.
Budget
See
budget table
Just under $78 million has been appropriated for the BN-350 fuel security project through Fiscal Year (FY) 2004. DOE has proposed a budget of $2 million for the effort in FY 2005, amounting to roughly a quarter of the previous year’s funding, as DOE decided it could use $23 million left unspent from previously appropriated funding to cover current activities.[14]In its report on its version of the FY 2005 appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Committee stipulates that no funding (from the current or previous years) may be used for "transportation equipment or activities" without the consent of the Appropriations and Armed Services Committees, suggesting the Appropriations Committee is concerned about any U.S. support for moving the fuel.[15]The estimated additional cost of transporting the fuel to Semipalatinsk for longer-term storage is reportedly in the range of $80 million.[16]
Key Issues and Recommendations
Investing in transportation and storage. The Bush administration has decided to pay for the casks and transport arrangements needed to ship the BN-350 fuel to Semipalatinsk and store it there. The Semipalatinsk site will certainly be more secure than the Aktau site as a long-term location for this material. But with so much other plutonium and HEU around the world inadequately secured, whether the increment in security that will be achieved by packing this particular fuel in new casks and shipping it to Semipalatinsk is worth a cost in the range of $80 million—when over $70 million has already been appropriated for dealing with this material—is a difficult question.
- Recommendation: Having arranged the fuel canning, the United States has a responsibility to address any safety and security issues relating to long-term storage at Aktau. Beyond ensuring that these issues are addressed, the U.S. government should only invest in shipping the material to another site if sufficient funds are available both to implement that project and to cover other, more urgent
Links
| Key Resources | |
| National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, "BN-350 Spent Fuel Disposition." | |
| Page on the National Nuclear Security Administration explaining the BN-350 Spent Fuel Disposition program and its latest activities. | |
| Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies, "Kazakhstan: Department of Energy Assistance Programs," Nuclear Threat Initiative Research Library, March 2002. | |
| A useful summary of DOE assistance to Kazakhstan, including the current state of the BN-350 spent fuel project. A chronological list of developments is also available. | |
| Argonne National Laboratory, "Argonne Nuclear Experts Lead U.S. Team in Kazakhstan Reactor Shutdown," Frontiers 2001 Newsletter, Argonne, IL: DOE. | |
| Summary in an ANL publication on activities carried out in 2001 that details the lab’s involvement in the BN-350 project. | |
| Phillip C. Bleek, "U.S. Finishes Packaging Kazakh Plutonium, Reviews Next Step," Arms Control Today, July/August 2001. | |
| A news account providing a brief summary of where the project stood as of when canning of the fuel was completed | |
FOOTNOTES
[1] See U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), FY 2005 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (Washington, D.C.: DOE, February 2004), p. 432–433, and National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, "BN-350 Spent Fuel Disposition."
[2] NNSA, "BN-350 Spent Fuel Disposition," op. cit.
[3] See, for example, "Safeguarding Nuclear Materials Is the Goal of International Alliance," Argonne National Laboratory Frontiers 2000.
[4] NNSA, "BN-350 Spent Fuel Disposition," op. cit.
[5]U.S. Department of Energy, "U.S. Secretary Richardson Highlights Strong U.S.-Kazakhstan Economic Relationship: Expands Energy Cooperation; Announces Non-Proliferation Progress," August 29, 2000.
[6] The high isotopic quality is because of the light irradiation of the fuel, and the fast neutron spectrum used in the reactor, which results in little buildup of higher plutonium isotopes.
[7] See, for example, William C. Potter, "Nuclear Leakage From the Post-Soviet States," testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, March 13, 1996.
[8] See, for example, Phillip C. Bleek, "U.S. Finishes Packaging Kazakh Plutonium, Reviews Next Step," Arms Control Today, July/August 2001.
[9] Quoted in Bleek, "U.S. Finishes Packaging," op. cit.
[10] See, for example, "Safeguarding Nuclear Materials," op. cit.
[11] Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), 2001 Annual Report (Washington, D.C.: NTI, 2002), p. 20.
[12] See, for example, Richard Stone, "Safe Haven For a Breeder’s Plutonium Hoard," Science, Vol. 300, May 23, 2003, p. 1224.
[13] DOE, FY 2005 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation , op. cit. pp. 432–433.
[14] Figures for past and current budget proposals come from DOE, FY 2005 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, op. cit.; William Hoehn, "Analysis of the Bush Administration's Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Requests for U.S.-Former Soviet Union Nonproliferation Programs," Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, April 2002; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), FY 2004 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (Washington, D.C.: DOE, February 2003), p. 602; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), FY 2002 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (Washington, D.C.: DOE, February 2001), p. 131; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), FY 2001 Budget Request: Detailed Budget Justifications – Nonproliferation and National Security (Washington, D.C.: DOE, February 2000), p. 87.
[15] U.S. House of Representatives, Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, 2005, 108th Congress, 2nd Session, 2004, H. Rept. 108-554.
[16] Stone, "Safe Haven For a Breeder’s Plutonium Hoard," op. cit.
Written by Matthew Bunn. Last updated by Josh Friedman on August 5, 2004.
The Securing the Bomb section of the NTI website is produced by the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) for NTI, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. MTA welcomes comments and suggestions at atom@harvard.edu. Copyright 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.