Highly Enriched Uranium Transparency Program
In February 1993, the United States and the Russian Federation signed an agreement allowing the United States to purchase 500 metric tonnes (about 1.1 million pounds) of highly enriched uranium (HEU) removed from Russia's dismantled nuclear weapons and blended into low-enriched uranium (LEU). The blending operation is conducted at Russian facilities, and the LEU is shipped to the United States for use in the manufacturing of fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The Program reached the halfway point in conversion of HEU into LEU in 2005. Since 1995, 250 metric tonnes of HEU from the equivalent of 10,000 nuclear warheads has been recycled into LEU fuel. The HEU Transparency Program was established within the U.S. Department of Energy to provide assurance that the HEU being purchased is from dismantled weapons, and that the same HEU is converted, processed, and blended to LEU. Staff members from Argonne's Environmental Science Division (EVS) provide major support for this program.
Four Russian nuclear facilities conduct HEU-to-LEU processing and are subject to monitoring under the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) HEU Transparency Program. These facilities are the Ural Electrochemical Integrated Plant (UEIP) in Novouralsk, the Mayak Production Association (MPA) in Ozersk, the Siberian Chemical Enterprise (SChE) in Seversk, and the Electrochemical Plant (ECP) in Zelenogorsk. A NNSA transparency monitoring office (TMO) was established at UEIP in Novouralsk in August 1996 and has been staffed almost continuously by U.S. monitors. The TMO offers unprecedented access in a closed city and the opportunity to monitor blending operations occurring within Russia. Currently, monitoring at the other three Russian facilities is confined to six one-week visits annually. EVS coordinates and manages the TMO for the NNSA. EVS recruits monitors, schedules TMO assignments, prepares the monitors for their trips, provides information to obtain Russian clearances and visas, coordinates data collection at the TMO, performs data analysis, provides computer network support for the TMO, and oversees daily operations of the TMO. EVS staff routinely participate in monitoring activities at the four Russian facilities and are trained in uranium blending operations and nondestructive assay.
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