Year
2001
Abstract
In fiscal year 1999, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program established the Material Consolidation and Conversion Project to reduce the complexity and the long-term costs of securing Russian nuclear material. Initially, converting excess, attractive, non-weapons highenriched uranium to low-enriched uranium was selected as the most effective means within available resources to significantly reduce the associated proliferation risk. The Model Project, May 1999-January 2000, at the Scientific Industrial Association “Luch”, in Podolsk, Russia, converted more than 230 kg of attractive high-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium. The Pilot Projects, with down blending sites at Luch and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) in Dimitrovgrad, Russia, converted more than 1.7 metric tons of additional, attractive high-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium in the period February 2000 to March 2001. This paper describes the development of the Material Consolidation and Conversion Project and identifies some of the practical challenges related to monitoring, assurances, and coordination that have been addressed by the Project Team and its colleagues at Luch. A similar process of implementation and evolution occurred in the second phase of the Project in cooperation with the staff at RIAR.