Key Issues
Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Materials
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January 2008
Key Facts
Preventing Proliferation
To combat the threat of proliferation, the international nuclear energy community has put in place rigid, redundant controls to ensure that it can fully account for nuclear materials manufactured for the production of electricity, along with their byproducts. The industry does so through the entire fuel cycle—from the mining of uranium to the safe and secure disposal of used nuclear fuel. These controls include global monitoring by international inspectors and stringent national inspection programs.
Commercial Reactors Pose Little Risk
Principal materials of concern in the nuclear weapons production cycle include highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium. Uranium as mined from the earth poses no risk of proliferation. Before its use in reactors, mined uranium must undergo an enrichment process that concentrates isotopes necessary for power production. This process creates low-enriched uranium (LEU) through a lengthy, complex and expensive process. It is impossible to create a nuclear weapon from LEU.
However, analysts are mindful that the same enrichment facilities used to create LEU may have the capability to convert natural uranium into highly enriched uranium.
Nuclear reactors, once in operation, create plutonium as a byproduct. However, the separation of plutonium contained in used fuel pellets requires complex chemical reprocessing. Like enrichment, reprocessing calls for a highly sophisticated infrastructure.
January 2008
Key Facts
- Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, their components and related technology is a global mission that requires the transparent participation and cooperation of all nations to ensure its success.
- Commercial reactor fuel poses no risk of proliferation; it cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon.
- Enrichment facilities that produce low-enriched uranium fuel for commercial reactors pose no risk of proliferation.
- Plutonium created during a standard commercial fuel cycle in U.S. civilian reactors poses little risk of proliferation. Plutonium is a byproduct of the fission process.
- The Megatons to Megawatts program is a 20-year, $8 billion government/industry partnership that is converting weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into reactor fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.
Preventing Proliferation
To combat the threat of proliferation, the international nuclear energy community has put in place rigid, redundant controls to ensure that it can fully account for nuclear materials manufactured for the production of electricity, along with their byproducts. The industry does so through the entire fuel cycle—from the mining of uranium to the safe and secure disposal of used nuclear fuel. These controls include global monitoring by international inspectors and stringent national inspection programs.
Commercial Reactors Pose Little Risk
Principal materials of concern in the nuclear weapons production cycle include highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium. Uranium as mined from the earth poses no risk of proliferation. Before its use in reactors, mined uranium must undergo an enrichment process that concentrates isotopes necessary for power production. This process creates low-enriched uranium (LEU) through a lengthy, complex and expensive process. It is impossible to create a nuclear weapon from LEU.
However, analysts are mindful that the same enrichment facilities used to create LEU may have the capability to convert natural uranium into highly enriched uranium.
Nuclear reactors, once in operation, create plutonium as a byproduct. However, the separation of plutonium contained in used fuel pellets requires complex chemical reprocessing. Like enrichment, reprocessing calls for a highly sophisticated infrastructure.
