nuclear-news

Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) cleared out of several nations

US says 5 nations clear out weapons-grade uranium NewsDay,  DOUGLAS BIRCH  WASHINGTON – (AP)  March 22, 2012  The U.S. has helped five nations completely clear out  their stocks of highly enriched uranium since President Barack Obama outlined his plans for securing all weapons-usable materials worldwide, officials say, citing it as progress in the administration’s efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from getting in terrorists’ hands.

Anne Harrington, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation chief, said that since Obama’s April 2009 speech in Prague announcing his plans, the U.S. has helped remove enough material from about a dozen countries to make almost 30 warheads. She added that several global leaders are expected to use a nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, which starts Sunday, to announce similar advances.

Arms control experts say the most difficult part of building an atomic bomb is acquiring the weapons-grade uranium or plutonium needed for the explosive core of the weapon. Locking up or eliminating these materials is crucial to preventing nuclear-armed terror.
Harrington said that’s the administration’s top national security concern: “Issue No. 1 … above anything else, keeping this material out of the hands of terrorists,” she said.
Over the past three years, officials say, the U.S. has helped Romania,
Libya, Turkey, Chile and Serbia completely clear out their stockpiles
of weapons-usable uranium. They join 13 other nations that did so
previously — Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, the
Philippines, Portugal, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and
Thailand.
For the most part, this has meant shutting down civilian research
reactors fueled by weapons-grade uranium, or converting those reactors
to use low-enriched uranium…..
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/us-says-5-nations-clear-out-weapons-grade-uranium-1.3617219

March 24, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uranium, USA, weapons and war