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HEU Removed From Three Countries
October 2015
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced last month the removal of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Jamaica, Switzerland, and Uzbekistan.
According to the agency, the NNSA now has assisted with the cleanout of all HEU from a total of 28 countries plus Taiwan. Roughly half of these removals have occurred since the Obama administration took office in 2009.
The removal of the last 5 kilograms of HEU from Uzbekistan, which was the eighth shipment of HEU from that country since 2004, involved the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia, the United States, and Uzbekistan, the NNSA said in a Sept. 29 press release. The Russian-origin spent HEU fuel was removed from a research reactor located at the Radiation and Technological Complex in Tashkent and shipped back to the Mayak nuclear complex in Russia.
According to a Sept. 24 IAEA press release, Russia and the United States have worked in cooperation with the agency to transfer nearly 2,160 kilograms of Soviet-origin HEU from 14 countries back to Russia in 61 shipments, where it is secured or down-blended into low-enriched uranium (LEU).
On Sept. 22, the NNSA announced the return of approximately 1 kilogram of U.S.-origin HEU from Jamaica’s “Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment,” or “Slowpoke,” research reactor, making the Caribbean region completely free of HEU. The NNSA worked to convert the reactor to run on LEU fuel prior to the removal of the HEU.
Canada, which fabricated the U.S.-supplied material into fuel for the reactor, provided technical support for the removal, the NNSA said in its Sept. 22 press release.
Six days before that release, the NNSA announced the removal of approximately 2.2 kilograms of U.S.-origin spent HEU fuel from Switzerland to the United States.
The HEU came from the AGN-211-P research reactor, which began operation in 1961. The reactor was operated for decades by the University of Basel for educational and research purposes, but the decision was made to decommission the reactor and repatriate the HEU fuel, the NNSA said.