29 January 2007
CHICAGO TRIBUNE (CHICAGO) -- A Chicago Tribune investigation found that the U.S. Energy Department is exaggerating its progress in securing tons of nuclear-weapons fuel spread across the globe. Among the ways the government overstates its success is through a numbers game that ignores the highly enriched uranium in many reactors around the world.
Documents and interviews show that one of the first things energy officials did, after restructuring its program to retrieve bomb fuel, was to make their job easier: They quit trying to remove bomb fuel from eight reactors that proved to be difficult cases, including one in Russia using four nuclear bombs' worth of fuel a year. In all, the Bush administration is trying to remove weapons-grade fuel from 60 research reactors worldwide, often speaking of this list as if it were complete. However there are at least 41 more reactors using highly enriched uranium fuel that the U.S. is not addressing.
Only 7 percent of the known quantities of U.S.-supplied spent fuel has been shipped back to America. Eighteen tons remain spread worldwide. Much of that fuel is in Europe and other parts of the developed world, but experts say the material is a potential threat no matter where it is.
The week of 21 January 2007 provided a fresh reminder. Georgian authorities disclosed they caught a man trying to sell highly enriched uranium he had hidden in plastic bags inside his pocket.
He came from the nation with the largest supply of vulnerable bomb fuel: Russia. Source: chicagotribune.comSource Reliability: 8
Analysis: It is likely that the majority of the 18 tons of U.S.-supplied spent fuel remaining throughout the world will be shipped back to the U.S. or secured elsewhere within the next decade. Nearly 20% of the outstanding 18 tons is located at one facility in Obninsk, near Moscow. Furthermore, as the number of relatively “easy” locations to extract weapons-grade spent fuel from decreases, the U.S. Energy Department will begin to focus its resources on more difficult/troublesome locations that this source claims it has neglected to consider.
Analytic Confidence: 6
-Josh
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