NNSA Repatriates Russian-Origin HEU, Making Uzbekistan HEU-Free

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Material Management and Minimization returned the final 5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent fuel from a research reactor in Uzbekistan to Russia, the NNSA announced yesterday. The shipment from the IIN-3M “Foton” research reactor in Tashkent, part of a multi-year effort, completes the removal of all HEU from Uzbekistan and “marks the 28th country overall, plus Taiwan, to have partnered with DOE/NNSA to become free of all HEU,” the NNSA said. The NNSA called the removal “logistically challenging, as it was the first transport of liquid HEU spent fuel by air,” and noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency, along with the NNSA and the government of the United Kingdom, will help the country decommission the Foton facility.

 

The NNSA previously worked with Uzbekistan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics “to convert its research reactor from HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and to secure radiological sources that, in the wrong hands, could be used for a dirty bomb.” It says it is currently working with the country’s State Customs Committee to help “detect, deter, and interdict illicit trafficking of special nuclear and other radiological material.” The NNSA has also helped Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation repatriate over 2,200 kilograms of Russian-origin HEU to the country since 2002, “enough for 88 nuclear weapons,” it said, which marks “the complete removal of all Russian-origin HEU from 11 countries.”