COULD TERRORISTS OR THIEVES GET WEAPONS USABLE MATERIAL FROM RESEARCH REACTORS AND FACILITIES?

There is a real danger that terrorists could make nuclear weapons from the weapon-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) used in most research reactors (20 per cent or higher enrichment in U-235). Despite the long-standing efforts by the US to convert research reactors with HEU to nonweapon- usable low-enriched uranium (LEU) and take back the HEU it supplied over the years in the “Atoms for Peace” program, most research reactors around the world still operate with HEU instead of LEU, including those in at least 28 developing countries. Major US-Russian cooperative efforts to better protect the many HEU facilities in Russia have produced substantial improvements there and in other former Soviet republics. Russia, which has itself supplied HEU research reactors to other countries, is now starting an effort similar to the US take-back program. Except for a major new HEU reactor in Germany, no new HEU reactors have been built since these conversion programs began. But the remaining HEU for research reactors is probably the most widespread and most vulnerable to terrorists of any weapon-usable material in the world. It is often poorly protected from thieves and saboteurs because, among many reasons, there are no required international standards for protecting such reactors.