“The Arms Control Association and all of the staff I've worked with over the years … have this ability to speak truth to power in a wide variety of venues.”
Russia Proposes Energy Initiative
October 2000
In his September 6 address to the UN Millennium Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a global initiative to develop a new nuclear power-production technology that would gradually eliminate the use of weapons-grade fissionable materials. The plan, which Putin suggested could be pursued under the "aegis" of the International Atomic Energy Agency, appears to be an attempt to engage international support for Russian nuclear power research.
Putin declared that the initiative would provide sufficient safe energy to ensure the "stable development of humankind," be the "final solution" to the problem of radioactive waste, reduce global warming, and provide a "radical solution" to the problem of fissile material proliferation. Apparently perturbed by a lack of press attention, Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov emphasized the global significance of the initiative at a September 12 Moscow press conference, stating that the plan could "solve the energy problem . . . for a thousand years ahead."
Although Putin and Adamov provided few technical specifics, prior Russian work and statements on nuclear power suggest that the plan is based on a closed fuel cycle utilizing mixed-oxide (plutonium and uranium) fuel in a breeder reactor (a type of reactor that produces as much plutonium fuel as it consumes). Neither plutonium nor uranium would be sufficiently refined or enriched at any point during the repeated cycles to permit direct use in nuclear weapons. In theory, such a fuel cycle could take advantage of uranium's full energy potential, providing abundant power while reducing proliferation risk. Global warming would be reduced if nuclear reactors substituted for current greenhouse gas-emitting conventional reactors. (See box for further technical details.)
In practice, however, numerous technical obstacles would complicate the effort. Even if those obstacles could be overcome, breeder reactor programs would require substantially more capital investment than current reactors, which in turn are much more expensive than conventional power plants. And while the fuel cycle the Russians appear to be proposing would minimize the risk of diversion by non-state actors, a state with the technological capability to manage a breeder reactor could be capable of extracting weapons-usable plutonium from the enormous amounts available in breeder-reactor fuel.
The proposal appears to be related to two recent bilateral developments. The United States and Russia have each agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-origin plutonium. (See ACT, July/August 2000.) Russia has announced its intention to burn all of its plutonium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in power reactors. U.S. officials hope that the Russian program, which is expected to cost about $1.7 billion, will be financed primarily by assistance from third-party nations (Washington expects to provide $400 million). The agreement makes available a large amount of potential fuel for Putin's initiative, as well as the possibility of international financing to meet some program costs.
The United States has also offered to collaborate with Russia on proliferation-resistant fuel cycle research (a long-standing Russian interest) in exchange for Russian agreement to a moratorium on civil spent fuel reprocessing. That moratorium remains under negotiation, with U.S. officials repeatedly asserting during the past year that agreement had been reached, assertions their Russian counterparts subsequently denied. (See ACT, March 2000.)
At his press conference, Adamov said that the initiative would require "interaction" with France, Japan, and the United States. The U.S. government declined to provide a formal response to the initiative, but a State Department official noted in an interview that the proposal was going to require "a great deal of discussion."
Technical Analysis
Philipp C. Bleek
Putin's initiative, which appears to be based on previous Russian research, probably involves fast breeder reactors initially fueled with plutonium and natural or low-enriched uranium oxides (MOX). Such reactors could produce as much plutonium as they consumed. Periodically, the irradiated uranium and plutonium would be reprocessed on-site to remove fission products and heavy elements and would be mixed with additional natural uranium oxide for a new cycle in the breeder. In principle this would allow the eventual use of all uranium isotopes, not just scarce U-235 (required for current nuclear reactors). With each cycle the plutonium would become less suitable for use in weapons as larger quantities of the higher isotopes of plutonium, which complicate and potentially inhibit weapons use, accumulated. In order to dispose of radioactive waste, the separated shorter-life fission products would be allowed to decay, while the separated long-life radioisotopes would be reintroduced into the breeder reactor to be transmuted (through neutron capture) to shorter-life isotopes. In order to improve safety, the reactor could be cooled with liquid lead (a concept Adamov has long advocated) rather than potentially dangerous sodium, utilized in the French and Japanese breeder programs.