Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Appendix 3A. The U.S. Plutonium and HEU DeclarationsThe U.S. Government’s plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) declarations(Plutonium: The First 50 Years and Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking a Balance) outlinedthe production, acquisition, and utilization of fissile materials from the mid 1940s tothe mid 1990s. 144 These declarations were constructed from records dating back to theearly 1940s and data collected regularly since the 1960s as part of the Nuclear MaterialsManagement and Safeguards System (NMMSS). The origin, evolution and capabilitiesof NMMSS offer insights for other nuclear weapon states wishing to consider sucha reporting system and in making such declarations for the purposes for furtheringnuclear disarmament.The U.S. Department of Energy:• Declared the total U.S. plutonium and HEU inventories, including all materials heldby the Department of Defense in nuclear warheads, military-reactor fuel, spent fuel,critical assemblies, and other military-use materials;• Categorized plutonium and HEU either as "required" (i.e., in active use or plannedfuture use in either weapons or non-weapons programs) or as "surplus" to defenseneeds; and• Constructed a 50-year material balance account similar to a bank register, whichcompared an actual inventory against a calculated book inventory (based on totalacquisitions minus total removals).While other DOE reports had provided much of this information separately, thesedeclarations combined previously released data with newly declassified informationthat allowed the United States to issue comprehensive reports for both plutonium andHEU.Balancing the BooksThe data for the declarations were available from at least one of three sources: (a) originalsite inventory and transaction journals, (b) site inventory and transaction dataas reported to NMMSS, and (c) historical material control and accounting summaryreports based on data submitted by facilities and compiled starting in the late 1940s bythe Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The reporting units in all three data sources forboth plutonium and HEU were grams, subsequently summarized in kilograms for thepurposes of simplifying the declarations.The material balance at each site and nationally can be expressed using the followingequation:Beginning inventory + receipts – shipments – measured discards or losses –ending inventory = material unaccountedThe production of plutonium in a uranium-fueled reactor is treated as a form of receipt,and the consumption (burnup) of U-235 in the same reactor as a form of removalor measured loss. Material unaccounted (i.e., the difference between the quantity ofnuclear material held according to the accounting books and the quantity measured42 Global Fissile Material Report 2009
in a physical inventory) occurs primarily because the closed material balance is one inwhich all identified flows are measured. Therefore, material unaccounted outside ofmeasurement error reflects either failure to measure all recognized material flows orfailure to detect unrecognized material losses.The total amount of nuclear material unaccounted during any time period is the sumof many smaller differences. Each difference arises for one or more of the followingreasons: (a) difficulties with measuring plant holdup; (b) measurement uncertaintiesdue to wide variations in the matrix containing the materials; (c) measurement uncertaintieswithin statistical variations concerning the measurement itself; (d) inadequate,primitive measuring technologies, especially in the early years; (e) uncertain measurementsfor waste due to small quantities of materials; (f) operational losses, such as accidentalspills in which accurate measurements had not been made before the spill; (g)corrections of human errors during input of accounting system data; and (h) roundingerrors.Each inventory difference is investigated by operating contractors and reviewed byDOE in order to assign a cause to any difference and to assure that no loss, diversion,theft or environmental contamination occurred.The primary advantage of using data from closed material balances is in the rigor ofeach equation. Information not derived from closed material balances (e.g., managementreports, historical memoranda, personal recollections) could be highly inaccurateand therefore must be corroborated with other, more reliable sources. A case inpoint was the quantity of United States produced HEU erroneously reported as 994metric tons at the June 27, 1994 Secretary of Energy’s Openness Press Conference andsubsequently corrected to 1,045 metric tons by the 1996 HEU declaration. Several factorsaccounted for the 51 metric ton increase; most notably, the 1994 data relied exclusivelyon existing management reports that, upon closer examination, proved to beboth incomplete and inaccurate.A secondary advantage in using the closed material balance concept is that, since thelate 1940s, all U.S. facilities have reported every element of the material balance equationto a centralized national system. By using the known beginning inventory (zero)and the known ending inventory of both plutonium and HEU, the task of solving forthe closed material balance elements became manageable. Items of the closed materialbalance (including total receipts, total shipments, total measured discards or losses,and total material unaccounted on a national level) were researched and applied to theknown aggregate national beginning and ending inventories.Early NMMSS HistoryIn the early 1940s, there was no U.S. government accounting standard related specificallyto nuclear materials. During these formative years, manual records were kept inconsiderable detail but there was little standardization among facilities. In 1948, thefirst standardizing policies were established and those practices have served as a foundationfor practices and procedures used today.Early on, the AEC recognized the need for an accountability system for nuclear materialsbecause virtually all work was performed in facilities owned or leased by the AECand operated by contractors on a cost-plus basis. These AEC contractors had no directfinancial incentive to control materials of unprecedented monetary and strategic value.To protect the interest of the government with respect to the proper use and stewardshipGlobal Fissile Material Report 2009 43
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 46 and 47: Even without such concerns, it coul
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
Page 102 and 103:
The IAEA could similarly use instru
Page 104 and 105:
2007. 327 Russia continues to produ
Page 106 and 107:
The fusion research facility ITER i
Page 108 and 109:
in fact, produce tritium in reactor
Page 110 and 111:
On the other hand, some argue that
Page 112 and 113:
Although we are assuming a world wi
Page 114 and 115:
Countries with reprocessing. Countr
Page 116 and 117:
Figure 8.6. Enrichment level of the
Page 118 and 119:
Transition PeriodThe discussion so
Page 120 and 121:
9 Societal VerificationThe concept
Page 122 and 123:
After the war, Szilard and others e
Page 124 and 125:
The historical record with regard t
Page 126 and 127:
The limitations of the safeguards s
Page 128 and 129:
Understandably, states that provide
Page 130 and 131:
Appendix AFissile Materials and Nuc
Page 132 and 133:
high-density spherical mass. The co
Page 134 and 135:
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
Page 140 and 141:
IndiaCountry Location/Name Region/P
Page 142 and 143:
RussiaCountry Location/Name Region/
Page 144 and 145:
Country Location/Name Region/Provin
Page 146 and 147:
14.Military Power of the People’s
Page 148 and 149:
44.The French company Areva is plan
Page 150 and 151:
73.An industry source specified 9.1
Page 152 and 153:
102.United Nations Security Council
Page 154 and 155:
Chapter 3. Declarations of Fissile
Page 156 and 157:
153.The design of the UK’s 50 MWe
Page 158 and 159:
185.For example, graphite of the Fr
Page 160 and 161:
210.Robert Norris and Hans Kristens
Page 162 and 163:
237.Arms Control and Nonproliferati
Page 164 and 165:
263.See e.g. Report on the Savannah
Page 166 and 167:
dissolved, leaving 753 tons of LWR
Page 168 and 169:
311.See e.g. Mycle Schneider and Yv
Page 170 and 171:
343.H. A. Feiveson, Latent Prolifer
Page 172 and 173:
368.A. Glaser, “Characteristics o
Page 174 and 175:
398.A recent U.S. Air Force survey
Page 176 and 177:
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
show all

Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?