Key Issues
Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Materials
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Other Programs and Initiatives
Other programs and initiatives also contribute to nonproliferation objectives. These include:
2004 White House Initiative
President George W. Bush announced a broad-based initiative in February 2004 to further combat the proliferation of nuclear weaponry through greater cooperation among U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, military forces, and police forces. It also called upon all nations to strengthen domestic laws to fight proliferation and for more stringent controls on enrichment and reprocessing facilities. It further advocated strengthening the IAEA’s monitoring and enforcement powers.
These controls include global monitoring by international inspectors, the destruction of surplus nuclear weapons through conversion into nuclear fuel and stringent national inspection programs. The president also proposed a novel means of nonproliferation: ensuring a reliable stream of reactor fuel at a reasonable price to nations that “renounce enrichment and reprocessing.”
G8 Global Partnership
President Bush has also called for the expansion of the G-8 Global Partnership, a program borne in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The world’s eight wealthiest nations (G-8) will spend $20 billion over 10 years in a global effort to block the development and acquisition of nu-clear weapons, as well as chemical and biological weapons and technology. One focus of the partnership is to provide assistance to the former Soviet Union in dismantling its nuclear weapons. Another is to ensure employment for the many scientists and technicians who once worked in that vast industry, as a means of thwarting any efforts to sell nuclear secrets, technology or fissile materials.
Megatons to Megawatts
The Megatons to Megawatts program is a 20-year, $8 billion government/industry partnership that is recycling weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.
America generates about 10 percent of its electricity, or roughly half of all of its nuclear power, using this fuel. In September 2005 this program, which operates at no cost to taxpayers, reached a significant milestone: the equivalent conversion of 10,000 nuclear warheads into nuclear fuel.
By 2013, the program will have downblended 500 metric tons of Russian nuclear warhead material—the equivalent of 20,000 warheads—and enough fuel to power the entire United States for about two years.
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
In 2006, the Bush administration announced the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative—a decades-long program to encourage the worldwide expansion of nuclear energy, while simultaneously removing proliferation threats by restricting access to enrichment and reprocessing technologies.
The United States and fuel-cycle nations, such as France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, would provide reactor technology and fuel to other nations, taking it back once used. GNEP also would focus on developing advanced reprocessing, fuel-fabrication and reactor technologies that would minimize the volume, heat generation and toxicity of material requiring disposal at a repository.
Other Programs and Initiatives
Other programs and initiatives also contribute to nonproliferation objectives. These include:
2004 White House Initiative
President George W. Bush announced a broad-based initiative in February 2004 to further combat the proliferation of nuclear weaponry through greater cooperation among U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, military forces, and police forces. It also called upon all nations to strengthen domestic laws to fight proliferation and for more stringent controls on enrichment and reprocessing facilities. It further advocated strengthening the IAEA’s monitoring and enforcement powers.
These controls include global monitoring by international inspectors, the destruction of surplus nuclear weapons through conversion into nuclear fuel and stringent national inspection programs. The president also proposed a novel means of nonproliferation: ensuring a reliable stream of reactor fuel at a reasonable price to nations that “renounce enrichment and reprocessing.”
G8 Global Partnership
President Bush has also called for the expansion of the G-8 Global Partnership, a program borne in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The world’s eight wealthiest nations (G-8) will spend $20 billion over 10 years in a global effort to block the development and acquisition of nu-clear weapons, as well as chemical and biological weapons and technology. One focus of the partnership is to provide assistance to the former Soviet Union in dismantling its nuclear weapons. Another is to ensure employment for the many scientists and technicians who once worked in that vast industry, as a means of thwarting any efforts to sell nuclear secrets, technology or fissile materials.
Megatons to Megawatts
The Megatons to Megawatts program is a 20-year, $8 billion government/industry partnership that is recycling weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.
America generates about 10 percent of its electricity, or roughly half of all of its nuclear power, using this fuel. In September 2005 this program, which operates at no cost to taxpayers, reached a significant milestone: the equivalent conversion of 10,000 nuclear warheads into nuclear fuel.
By 2013, the program will have downblended 500 metric tons of Russian nuclear warhead material—the equivalent of 20,000 warheads—and enough fuel to power the entire United States for about two years.
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
In 2006, the Bush administration announced the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative—a decades-long program to encourage the worldwide expansion of nuclear energy, while simultaneously removing proliferation threats by restricting access to enrichment and reprocessing technologies.
The United States and fuel-cycle nations, such as France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, would provide reactor technology and fuel to other nations, taking it back once used. GNEP also would focus on developing advanced reprocessing, fuel-fabrication and reactor technologies that would minimize the volume, heat generation and toxicity of material requiring disposal at a repository.
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