Year
2000
Abstract
In fiscal year (FY) 1999, Minatom and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) Program established the Material Consolidation and Conversion (MCC) Project to reduce the complexity and the long-term costs of securing Russian nuclear material. Lowering the enrichment of high-enriched uranium (HEU) was selected as the most effective means within available resources to significantly reduce the associated proliferation risk. This approach focuses on down blending attractive, non-weapons HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU). The Model Project at the Scientific Industrial Association, Luch (Luch) in Podolsk, Russia was completed in January 2000, and resulted in the down blending of approximately 200 kg of attractive HEU to low-enriched-uranium (LEU). The Pilot Projects with down blending sites at Luch and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) in Dimitrovgrad, Russia are expected to result in significantly more attractive HEU being down blended into LEU by the end of calendar year 2000. One key feature of these projects, and the subject of this paper, is the monitoring and validation regimes at both Luch and RIAR, which are intended to provide reasonable assurance that the HEU declared was down blended to the specified LEU. This assurance results from review of accounting records, of inventory and transactions, random measurement of materials at each processing stages, assessment of material balances, access to materials’ areas and processes, and open interactions with facility personnel.