#Russia fulfills all obligations on return of highly enriched nuclear fuel from other countries' research reactors

Despite their turbulent political relations, the US and Russia continue their co-operation when it comes to issues of nuclear safety and upholding nuclear nonproliferation.

One of the key joint programs of the two countries is aimed at returning highly enriched uranium intended for research reactors back to its country of origin. This is a unique project in the nuclear energy sector with the participation of highly-trained specialists from both countries that work with third countries in order to strengthen the world security.

One of the most important objectives of the Research Reactor Fuel Return Program is preventing illegal proliferation of nuclear materials and derivatives thereof. This is an attempt by both countries to make every effort to prevent spent nuclear fuel materials and highly enriched uranium from getting in the hands of terrorists.

The programme was initiated in 1999 with joint consultations between the representatives from Russia, the USA and IAEA. Following that, the IAEA Director General sent out letters to 15 countries, in which the Soviet-design research reactors were built, asking for their willingness to take part in the project that is aimed at returning highly enriched nuclear fuel back to Russia. Similar letters were also sent to the countries that have research reactors built using the American technology – in this case, the US specialists were responsible for the removal of highly enriched uranium.

Russia first took highly enriched fresh fuel from Romania. In 2002, fuel from the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, located in the suburbs of Belgrade, was brought to Russia. Spent fuel was carried out from Uzbekistan for the first time in 2006. In 2005, at a summit in Bratislava, Russian and American Presidents agreed to complete the return of all HEU of the spent nuclear fuel that at that time was outside the research reactor cores in 2010.

These obligations were totally fulfilled by the Russian party and by the end of 2010 Russia returned irradiated fuel assemblies from Uzbekistan, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Libya, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Belarus and Serbia. The international experts recognized the shipment of 645 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Poland asthe “most widescale initiative” within the program.

After 2010, there were sporadic spent nuclear fuel shipments from several countries in which research reactors continued to partially operate on highly enriched uranium when the fuel was discharged. So far, a few dozen successful operations of returning fresh and spent highly enriched nuclear fuel have taken place within the Russian-American partnership framework.

Altogether, by the end of 2015, more than 2,150 kilograms of nuclear fuel were returned to Russia, which could be enough to produce more than 80 nuclear warheads. During the past few years, a well-developed infrastructure for fuel loading and transporting has been created as part of the program implementation. Russia and the US seek to continue their co-operation in this field. In a few days an international summit on nuclear security will take place in Washington.– One of the key issues for discussion will be the progress of the USA’s and Russia’s efforts within the framework of the existing arrangements and intergovernmental agreements regarding the processing of highly enriched uranium.

In total, within the framework of the intergovernmental agreements, Russia committed to bringing back 2,529 kilograms of nuclear fuel from 14 countries. The US has been carrying out a similar program of returning spent nuclear fuel since 1996, committing to accepting 1,390 kilograms from 16 nations. Both the US and Russia are reducing their stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium. Russia is doing this at a bit faster pace. According to 2014 data, as a result of the fulfilled agreements, Russia processed about 500 tonnes of weapon-grade uranium, while the US , in turn, converted 143 tons into fuel for its nuclear power plants.

Furthermore, the US-Russia partnership also includes a number of important agreements related to processing of weapon-grade plutonium, a material, which, unlike uranium, has always been used by nuclear weapon states for the production of nuclear weapons. A MOX-fuel (fuel produced of processed weapon-grade plutonium) production factory began operating at the Mining and Chemical Combine in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Region in late 2015.

Such fuel is planned to be used at BN-800, a sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, which was also commissioned at the end of last year at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in the Ural region. The accomplishments of the American side are, in turn, not so significant, and are called into question by a number of American experts in the context of meeting the deadlines.

In his interview with The Washington Post Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s Attorney General, noted that the US Department of Energy should exert every effort in order to fulfill its obligations stipulated in the agreement with Russia, since the planned factory for the processing of weapon-grade plutonium has not been completed yet and suffers from a lack of financing.

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