Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

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Figure 2.3. An Advanced CruiseMissile is loaded onto the wingof a B-52 at Minot Air ForceBase (North Dakota). In August2007, six nuclear-armed AdvancedCruise Missiles were inadvertentlyloaded onto a B-52bomber and flown to BarksdaleAir Force Base (Louisiana). Thetransfer remained unaccountedfor at both bases and by thecrew until discovered 36 hourslater. Source: Jocelyn Rich, U.S.Air Force, picture available onwikipedia.org.Resistance to nuclear disarmament today comes primarily from policy makers, formerofficials and intellectuals who have come to embrace nuclear deterrence and fromthe nuclear-weapon-complex, which relies on these weapons for its existence. Publicsentiment world-wide largely is in favor of nuclear abolition, with polls showingoverwhelming majorities even in the nuclear weapons states (except Pakistan, wheremargins are much smaller) in favor of an international verified agreement to eliminatenuclear weapons. 112 The issue is not, however, keenly felt and public opinion is notmobilized into an anti-nuclear movement on the scale that has been able in the pastto impact policy.Disarmament ChallengesThere are several challenges facing the transition to a nuclear weapon free world and toassuring its security and stability. These include the mechanism or process shaping thedisarmament trajectory, the issue of reversibility, the management and elimination offissile material stocks, and the risks of nuclear weapon reconstitution or proliferationusing material and capabilities in civilian nuclear energy programs.Overall agreement or step-by-step? One of the overarching issues is whether countriescommit to the explicit goal and an agreed framework for achieving nuclear disarmament,or whether they continue with an ad hoc approach of nuclear reduction andnonproliferation steps. 113Both approaches have been and likely will continue to be used. As part of the 2000NPT Review Conference, the nuclear-weapon states party to the Treaty agreed to a programof thirteen steps towards the goal of meeting their obligations under Article VI.These steps included meeting specific targets and set timelines. 114 There have, as yet,been no formal talks among the five nuclear weapon states that are Parties to the NPTon achieving these obligations but their year-2000 agreement has helped frame thesubsequent debate. At the same time, the United States and Russia, which account formore than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weaponry, have engaged in a fitful stepby-stepbilateral process of arms control and reductions that has yielded significantreductions in their nuclear arsenals.The balance between an agreed plan for disarmament and a step-by-step approach willhave a bearing on declarations of stocks of fissile material. It would be natural in anoverall plan for the nuclear-weapon states to commit to prepare and declare a complete28 Global Fissile Material Report 2009
inventory of their fissile material holdings early in the process, even if verification wereto come later. In a step-by-step approach, declarations might be limited to material“excess to military requirements” as and when states chose to so decide.Irreversibility. In the transition to zero—and for some time even in a disarmed world —a considerable degree of reversibility would be inevitable. As states give up nuclearweapons, they will have stockpiles of fissile material freed up by dismantling theirweapons and a cohort of weapons design and engineering experts. They also will retainlegacy production plants and former nuclear warhead R&D, production and maintenancefacilities, all of which will require monitoring until they are decommissioned orconverted to civilian purposes.In 1984, disarmament advocate Jonathan Schell argued that the possibility of nuclearrearmament could actually help secure abolition, since in a world free of nuclearweapons “the knowledge of how to rebuild the weapons … would keep deterrence inforce.” 115 A state considering possible nuclear breakout would be restrained by the prospectthat others could quickly follow suit. Schell has also observed, however, that theimpulse for breakout and the need to prepare to deter it would wane with time, sincethe political, legal, and moral pressures that have prevented nuclear weapons use since1945 would be strengthened in the transition to a nuclear-weapon-free world. 116The issue of reversibility has been recognized and addressed more recently by nuclearweaponstates and non-weapon states as part of the NPT. The NPT thirteen steps,agreed in 2000, included a commitment for “the principle of irreversibility to apply tonuclear disarmament, nuclear and other related arms control and reduction measures.”Some states have adopted this approach. France, when it ratified the ComprehensiveNuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), shut down and decommissioned its nuclear test sitein the South Pacific, after a controversial series of tests in 1996. Also, after it decidedto end its production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, it shut down and decommissionedits military HEU and plutonium-production facilities at Pierrelatte and Marcoulerespectively.In a world in which states agree not to commit resources to acquire or maintain nuclearweapons, theoretical knowledge of nuclear weapons would survive but capacities tomake them would atrophy. As sociologist Donald MacKenzie has noted:“Outside of the human, intellectual, and material networks thatgive them life and force, technologies cease to exist. We cannotreverse the invention of the motorcar, perhaps, but imagine aworld in which there were no car factories … where no one alivehad ever driven, and there was satisfaction with whatever alternativeforms of transportation existed. The libraries might stillcontain pictures of automobiles and texts on motor mechanics,but there would be a sense in which that was a world in whichthe motor car had been uninvented.” 117Fissile material controls. If nuclear weapons are to be eliminated, the plutonium andhighly enriched uranium (HEU) that are at their cores will have to be eliminated.Also, stocks of these materials produced to fuel nuclear reactors, but which could beused to make nuclear weapons, will have to be minimized and the remainder heavilysafeguarded. The importance of controlling fissile materials as a means of achievingand securing nuclear disarmament was advocated in the 1945 Franck Report, whichGlobal Fissile Material Report 2009 29
Page 5: Table of ContentsAbout the IPFM 1Fo
Page 8 and 9: ForewordOver the past year, the imp
Page 12: Verified warhead dismantlement. A c
Page 17 and 18: China. Over the past year, there ap
Page 19 and 20: Figure 1.2. National stocks of high
Page 21 and 22: 1400 kg that were used annually in
Page 30 and 31: 2 Fissile Materials andNuclear Disa
Page 32 and 33: The number of nuclear weapon states
Page 36 and 37: discussed both rationing access to
Page 38 and 39: 3 Declarations of Fissile MaterialS
Page 40 and 41: Declarations of fissile material in
Page 42 and 43: Figure 3.2. History of U.S. plutoni
Page 44 and 45: If declarations are made early and
Page 46 and 47: Even without such concerns, it coul
Page 48 and 49: Appendix 3A. The U.S. Plutonium and
Page 50 and 51: of nuclear materials, including all
Page 52 and 53: also on all exports and imports of
Page 54 and 55: Appendix 3B.Estimating Plutonium-Pr
Page 56 and 57: Thermal power 20-25 MWt Effective c
Page 58 and 59: 4 Nuclear ArchaeologyVerification o
Page 60 and 61: Between 1992 and 1998, the U.S. Pac
Page 62 and 63: econstructed from the plant’s was
Page 64 and 65: Figure 4.5. Integrated operation of
Page 66 and 67: Figure 4.7. Fissile material produc
Page 68 and 69: • Traces of neptunium. Radioactiv
Page 70 and 71: • conduct all verification activi
Page 72 and 73: When necessary, the verification re
Page 74 and 75: The various aspects of verified war
Page 76 and 77: The numbers of warheads and compone
Page 78 and 79: Quantities of fissile materials in
Page 80 and 81: Figure 5.5. Nuclear-WeaponsIdentifi
Page 82 and 83: There has been considerable skeptic
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Below, the ongoing efforts in Russi
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down per year. At this blend-down r
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Until one or both of these strategi
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Of those options, the study found t
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With regard to the reprocessing of
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weapon-grade plutonium at its Dimon
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IPFM graphics redrawn from Bulletin
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Any new production of HEU for react
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The IAEA could similarly use instru
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2007. 327 Russia continues to produ
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The fusion research facility ITER i
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in fact, produce tritium in reactor
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On the other hand, some argue that
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Although we are assuming a world wi
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Countries with reprocessing. Countr
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Figure 8.6. Enrichment level of the
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Transition PeriodThe discussion so
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9 Societal VerificationThe concept
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After the war, Szilard and others e
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The historical record with regard t
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The limitations of the safeguards s
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Understandably, states that provide
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Appendix AFissile Materials and Nuc
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high-density spherical mass. The co
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Figure A.4. The fast-neutron critic
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IsotopeCritical Mass[kg]Half Life[y
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Appendix BWorldwide Locations ofNuc
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IndiaCountry Location/Name Region/P
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RussiaCountry Location/Name Region/
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Country Location/Name Region/Provin
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14.Military Power of the People’s
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44.The French company Areva is plan
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73.An industry source specified 9.1
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102.United Nations Security Council
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Chapter 3. Declarations of Fissile
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153.The design of the UK’s 50 MWe
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185.For example, graphite of the Fr
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210.Robert Norris and Hans Kristens
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237.Arms Control and Nonproliferati
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263.See e.g. Report on the Savannah
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dissolved, leaving 753 tons of LWR
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311.See e.g. Mycle Schneider and Yv
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343.H. A. Feiveson, Latent Prolifer
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368.A. Glaser, “Characteristics o
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398.A recent U.S. Air Force survey
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IPFM Members, Other Contributors to
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Li Bin (Beijing, China, shared memb
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Annette Schaper (Frankfurt, Germany
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Other Contributors to Global Fissil
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SGS Research and Administrative Sta
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Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

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