nuclear-news

Missing highly enriched uranium canisters probably came from Mayak nuclear facility

In the age of terrorism, disturbing questions remain on nuclear security, WP,  By Editorial Board December 14 THREE TIMES in the past 16 years — Bulgaria in 1999, France in 2001 and Moldova in 2011 — containers of highly enriched uranium have been seized by authorities, according to an article published online last month by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization. In each case, the person holding the uranium said it was part of a larger cache for sale.

Such proffers have in the past been made by employees at nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union who smuggled the material out of their plants. In 1992, a worker diverted approximately 3.3 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from a facility in Russia, taking it home bit by bit, storing it on his balcony. He was arrested at the local train station, planning to travel to Moscow to sell it.

But the three containers of highly enriched uranium have something in common that until now has been kept secret. According to the article, forensic analysis by U.S. and French nuclear scientists strongly suggests that the materials came from the same source. The analysis indicates all three samples were produced in the early 1990s at a Russian nuclear facility, the MayakProduction Association, located near the town of Ozersk in the Ural Mountains region of Chelyabinsk. The uranium could have been removed in the chaotic early years after the Soviet Union collapsed, when many such facilities were poorly guarded, and it may now be anywhere……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nuclear-insecurity/2015/12/14/21a7f38a-938e-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html

December 16, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, safety