The American Nuclear Society is “unconvinced” that high-assay low-enriched uranium could lead to a surge in weapons proliferation, the group said in an open letter to Science Magazine.
“The implied recommendation that the United States should unilaterally decide international nuclear security policy by domestically lowering the enrichment threshold for commercial uranium fuel is particularly problematic,” Lisa Marshall, president of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), wrote in the letter, published Tuesday.
Science Magazine published an article in June, titled “The weapons potential of high-assay low-enriched uranium.” In the article, authors Scott Kemp, Edwin Lyman, Mark Deinert, Richard Garwin and Frank von Hippel argue that the “explosion of interest” in high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) can “undermine” the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons present in international policymaking over the past 70 years.
HALEU contains between 10% and 20% of the fissile uranium-235 isotope, the practical limit for nuclear weapons, Science wrote in its June article.
The authors of the Science story article called for Congress to reexamine HALEU proliferation risks by restricting enrichment levels to below 10% to 12% for reactor fuels, which ANS said was “a blanket assertion” based on Manhattan Project-era formulas stating HALEU can create a nuclear explosive yield.
“Governments and others promoting the use of HALEU have not carefully considered the potential proliferation and terrorism risks that the wide adoption of this fuel creates,” the Science article said.
ANS said the authors in Science “disregarded” the effectiveness of country-specific safeguards in place preventing the possession and export of nuclear material. ANS also called the article’s claim that other countries are “only days away from a bomb” if in possession of HALEU an “inappropriate” and “inflammatory” statement that is “not supported by any facts.”
The Department of Energy is trying to kickstart a domestic, civilian HALEU industry, including with a contract for Centrus Energy Corp. to operate a 16-machine HALEU cascade at the Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, and a competition to help the department acquire up to 145 metric tons of the material over a decade.
A spokesperson from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told the Monitor in an email that the agency is “supportive of nuclear power and advanced reactors as part of a clean energy approach to combat climate change and enhance energy security in the United States and around the world.”
The spokesperson also said that as interest in nuclear power expands and HALEU gets more common, safeguards would need to be in place.
“The U.S. government remains a strong partner and supporter of the International Atomic Energy Agency to implement international safeguards and develop safety and security guidance that evolves as risks and threats do,” the spokesperson said in the email. “Additionally, NNSA has established programs to partner with U.S. advanced reactor companies to design-in effective safeguards and security measures.”
The ANS expressed similar sentiments.
“While we agree that the proliferation risks of HALEU merit careful consideration, we are confident that these can be addressed within the existing international frameworks,” ANS said in the letter.
