The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it helped remove 1 kilogram of Chinese highly enriched uranium from Ghana, clearing the last cache of such nuclear weapon-usable material out of the West African nation.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said in a press release it cooperated with Ghana, China, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove the HEU from Ghana’s GHARR-1 Miniature Neutron Source Reactor at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission’s National Nuclear Research Institute in Accra.
NNSA and IAEA experts “monitored the process of loading the fuel into a transfer cask, which was transported safely and securely to China,” the Energy Department’s stockpile steward and nonproliferation agent said in the release.
The repatriation of the Chinese-origin HEU follows an earlier nonproliferation effort in Ghana announced in July, in which China and the U.S. worked through the IAEA to convert the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor from using HEU fuel to running on low-enriched uranium fuel.
Four other countries still use the Chinese-made Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) with weapon-grade uranium fuel, the IAEA noted Tuesday.
“With this pioneer engagement Ghana demonstrated the feasibility of the MNSR conversion outside China,” said Kwame I. J. Aboh, project manager for the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, said in an IAEA press release. “We hope our model of conversion and repatriation can be applied in similar operations in other countries operating such facilities.”
The MNSR is Ghana’s sole research reactor.
Thirty-two nations, plus Taiwan, have now been freed of all HEU, the NNSA noted.
