Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

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Even without such concerns, it could be difficult to provide unambiguous numbersfor nuclear-weapon stockpiles. At any given time, weapon states will have nuclear warheadsat various stages of deployment, in storage, in transit, undergoing maintenance,being assembled and disassembled. During some of these activities, the warhead mayor may not include all the fissile material components, as well as the high explosives,and electronic arming, fusing, firing and safety mechanisms (Figure 3.6).Figure 3.6. Components of a U.S. B-61 thermonuclearweapon. A nuclear weapon is a complexmechanism, with the nuclear explosive or “physicspackage” (*) and its associated arming, fusing,firing and safety systems. The physics package isitself a composite, made up of a plutonium shell orpit surrounded by a high-explosive that when detonatedcompresses the pit into a super-critical massable to undergo a fission chain-reaction, whichin turn drives the explosion of a thermonuclearsecondary. For more details see Appendix A. Source:U.S. Department of Energy.Nuclear weapon states would have to agree at what stages in a nuclear warhead’s lifecycle,it may no longer be considered for accounting purposes a warhead. This wouldinclude identifying steps in the initial weapons assembly and final disassembly phasewhere it should be accounted for as an assembled weapon, weapons components or fissilematerials. Prior to its assembly into a component and after its extraction, the fissilematerial could be assigned to a non-weapons category, where it could be made availableto international inspectors for verification purposes.It is worth noting that the distinction between declarations of fissile materials and ofnuclear weapons will eventually become less relevant. Today, nuclear weapon statestreat the quantities of fissile material in individual warheads as a secret but, once bothfissile material inventories and nuclear weapon arsenals have been declared—and especiallywhen relatively few weapon designs remain in the stockpile—more and moreaccurate estimates of the amount of fissile material per warhead will become possible.40 Global Fissile Material Report 2009
ConclusionsDeclarations of fissile material production and nuclear weapon holdings will be necessaryfor nuclear disarmament. These declarations must be followed by verification measuresthat give some confidence that the declaration is both complete and accurate.Declarations of fissile material production histories can in principle be verified to asignificant degree. Early preparation of such declarations, even if initially not shared,are extremely important because reconstruction of the history of fissile material productionis often based on ephemeral and inadequate records, whose interpretation willrequire the assistance of workers who will inevitably become less available with time.Given that the bulk of today’s global fissile material inventory was produced decadesago, determining completeness will be an extraordinarily difficult task, even if a declaringstate is fully cooperative. The task is made more complex by the fact nuclearweaponstates never expected that their nuclear-weapon activities would be subjectto international review—let alone having international inspectors visit and examinerelated sites, materials, or documents.Agreement that all nuclear weapons are to be eliminated should permit comprehensiveand increasingly detailed declarations. Initial declarations for all weapons statescould include aggregate numbers for the inventories of fissile materials and their productionand disposition histories. The U.S. plutonium and HEU declarations suggestthat site-by-site fissile material declarations are possible. Similarly, there is a precedentin U.S.-Russian arms control agreements for declarations of nuclear weapons by site.States may choose initially to make partial declarations for fissile material and nuclearweapons that cover only a single or a few sites.The initial verification of declarations of fissile material production will depend onconsistency checks within released records, while later, more detailed verification willcome from actual measurements on available material and production facilities. Thesemore intrusive verification methods, using techniques that have come to be known asnuclear archaeology, are further discussed in the following chapter. The verification ofdeclared nuclear warheads and their dismantlement are discussed in Chapter 5.Global Fissile Material Report 2009 41
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 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 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
Page 94 and 95: 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
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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
Page 182 and 183:
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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