Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

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discussed both rationing access to uranium and “book-keeping on the fate of eachpound of uranium mined,” and in the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which proposedplacing under international ownership and operational control all uranium mining aswell as uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities. 118Such improvements in international fissile-material controls are merited even if nucleardisarmament turns out to be unachievable in the near future. With or withoutcomplete nuclear disarmament, deep cuts in fissile-material stocks and strengthenedcontrols are required to support deep cuts of nuclear weaponry, bolster the nonproliferationregime, and prevent nuclear terrorism.Today disarmers are faced with ten thousand warheads in service, a similar numberawaiting dismantlement, and materials and components from tens of thousands more.There are also more than a hundred HEU-powered ships and submarines and over ahundred research reactors fueled with HEU mostly weapon-grade. More than 90 percentof the weapons, components and materials are concentrated, however, in Russiaand the United States. The magnitude of the disarmament challenge in the remainingseven states is much less.There also are thirty states with nuclear power plants that produce spent fuel containingplutonium as part of their normal operation and enough already-separated civilianplutonium to produce at least 30,000 nuclear warheads. Once again, however, mostnuclear fuel cycle facilities and the separated plutonium are concentrated in a relativelysmall number of states.Also, a great deal of experience has been accumulated in exercising national and internationalcontrol over nuclear materials and technology. Fissile material accountancyand monitoring lie at the heart of the system of IAEA safeguards required by the NPTto verify that non-weapon states are abiding by their commitments not to divert fissilematerial to nuclear-weapon production.The importance of including reduction of fissile material stocks in the nuclear-disarmamentagenda is widely understood. Russia and the United States are eliminating significantfractions of the fissile material recovered from their excess Cold War warheadsand, in 2009, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament agreed to begin talkson a treaty banning the production of new fissile material for nuclear weapons. 119 Thetalks may begin in 2010.Securing nuclear-weapon elimination will require the international community to developstructures and confidence to respond to non-compliance immediately and effectively.One option to increase confidence in the likelihood of enforcement might be toplace all nuclear material under international ownership and make national appropriationof nuclear material an offense under international law.Even a robust verification system could not assure, however, that all fissile materialshad been accounted for in a world in which enough fissile material has been producedto make more than 100,000 nuclear warheads. Measurement errors and material lostirretrievably in wastes and during testing by the United States and Russia in particular,will make it impossible to verify to a level of 99 percent (i.e. to within the equivalentof 1000 warheads) that all fissile material has been disposed of or placed under internationalmonitoring. It is worth noting, however, that the uncertainty will be con-30 Global Fissile Material Report 2009
centrated in the United States and Russia, which produced by far the largest amountsof fissile material and numbers of nuclear weapons, and carried out the most nuclearweapons tests. Assessing the adequacy of technical verification and the significance ofuncertainty will be a political judgment.Ultimately, the international verification system will have to be complemented by societalverification in which a large enough fraction of citizens are committed to maintaininga nuclear-weapon-free world that they can be depended to “blow the whistle”when they become aware of clandestine nuclear-weapon stockpiles and activities.Nuclear power and nuclear disarmament. The organization of nuclear energy will beone of the more important technical factors shaping the possibility and difficulty ofnuclear-weapon reconstitution or proliferation (Chapter 8). At one extreme would bea world with reprocessing and enrichment plants in many countries, with huge stocksand flows of separated weapon-useable plutonium and HEU in nuclear fuel cycles thatcould facilitate rapid rearmament. This world could have the civilian and naval fuelcycles in some weapon states today replicated in many countries: reprocessing and plutoniumrecycle as in France, naval reactors fueled by HEU as in the United States, fleetsof HEU-fueled research reactors as in Russia, civilian national enrichment facilities asin the United States, Russia, Japan, etc. In this world, the technical barriers to nuclearrearmament would be at their lowest.A world with higher technical barriers to nuclear rearmament would be one whereseparated weapon-useable fissile material would be very scarce. Spent-fuel reprocessingwould have been abandoned in favor of interim storage—as has already occurredin most countries with nuclear power plants. HEU-fueled nuclear ships and submarineswould have either been replaced by LEU-fueled vessels, as has been happening inFrance, or phased out. 120 Stocks of HEU would have been blended down and plutoniumdisposed of. And all uranium enrichment would occur at facilities owned by companiesfrom more than one country and operated by multinational teams.The most substantial technical obstacles to any nuclear rearmament would be in aworld with no military or civilian nuclear activities whatsoever, except possibly thoserequired to produce essential radioisotopes. Even then, however, there would be theenduring problem of some states having stored civilian spent nuclear fuel containingplutonium, and spent naval fuel containing highly enriched uranium, that could beaccessed for weapons.The debates today over the future role of nuclear energy and the proliferation andcontrol of nuclear fuel cycle technology and the means to prevent its use for weaponsmark only the beginning of a discussion that will become increasingly important asthe world moves towards eliminating nuclear weapons.Global Fissile Material Report 2009 31
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 34 and 35: Figure 2.3. An Advanced CruiseMissi
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
Page 84 and 85: Below, the ongoing efforts in Russi
Page 86 and 87:
down per year. At this blend-down r
Page 88 and 89:
Until one or both of these strategi
Page 90 and 91:
Of those options, the study found t
Page 92 and 93:
With regard to the reprocessing of
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weapon-grade plutonium at its Dimon
Page 96:
IPFM graphics redrawn from Bulletin
Page 100 and 101:
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
Page 118 and 119:
Transition PeriodThe discussion so
Page 120 and 121:
9 Societal VerificationThe concept
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After the war, Szilard and others e
Page 124 and 125:
The historical record with regard t
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The limitations of the safeguards s
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Understandably, states that provide
Page 130 and 131:
Appendix AFissile Materials and Nuc
Page 132 and 133:
high-density spherical mass. The co
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Figure A.4. The fast-neutron critic
Page 136 and 137:
IsotopeCritical Mass[kg]Half Life[y
Page 138 and 139:
Appendix BWorldwide Locations ofNuc
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IndiaCountry Location/Name Region/P
Page 142 and 143:
RussiaCountry Location/Name Region/
Page 144 and 145:
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
Page 174 and 175:
398.A recent U.S. Air Force survey
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IPFM Members, Other Contributors to
Page 178 and 179:
Li Bin (Beijing, China, shared memb
Page 180 and 181:
Annette Schaper (Frankfurt, Germany
Page 182 and 183:
Other Contributors to Global Fissil
Page 184 and 185:
SGS Research and Administrative Sta
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Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

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