The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month issued a license for export of weapon-grade uranium to France to refuel a research reactor.
The agency is considering several similar license applications from the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Each draws scrutiny from nongovernmental nonproliferation advocates who fear terrorists could obtain the highly enriched uranium in transit or at civilian facilities.
The license was issued on Oct. 5 and expires on Dec. 31, 2017. It covers 130 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 93.2 percent, with as much as 121.1 kilograms of uranium-235, in broken metal form.
The NNSA is the licensee, with the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) High Flux Reactor listed as the ultimate consignee for the material. The reactor produces neutrons used in a host of research projects at the internationally recognized science facility in Grenoble.
The other listed parties to the license are: Consolidated Nuclear Security, which operates the NNSA’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the point of origin for the uranium; and AREVA, which would provide material transport and reactor fuel fabrication services in France.
The material would be shipped via military transport, the NRC said in an Oct. 5 memo. The NNSA said that, for security purposes, it could not provide details of the shipment.
The NNSA has worked with partner states to convert reactors around the world from using HEU fuel to proliferation-resistant low-enriched uranium. The Obama administration’s Nuclear Security Summit process also made that one of its goals, alongside development of new LEU reactor fuels.
ILL in 1998 pledged to study converting its reactor to running on LEU fuel, but that is not expected to happen until 2027-2028. In the meantime, “The operator cannot currently use low-enriched uranium to fuel this reactor and produce the neutrons it needs,” the NRC memo says.
The National Nuclear Security Administration since 1989 has made three prior shipments to ILL, totaling 274 kilograms of uranium.
The Institut Laue-Langevin anticipates running out of nuclear fuel by September 2019. The U.S. material would keep the reactor operating for three to five years beyond that point, according to the NRC memo, in which the commission rejected a petition to intervene and for a public hearing on the license application from Alan Kuperman, coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin and a consistent critic of such applications.
In his March 18, 2015, petition, Kuperman cited three significant dangers in sending a multiyear supply of HEU to the French facility: it would reduce the incentive for Europe to develop an alternative LEU fuel for use at ILL; it would have the same effect on the willingness of facility management to switch the reactor to LEU; and the reactor itself might close earlier than anticipated, before the HEU is all used, “thereby creating a surplus stock of U.S.-origin HEU in Europe that could be used to undermine U.S. non-proliferation policy.”
He called on the NRC not to authorize export of HEU to the French facility that would be surplus to its “demonstrated needs” – leaving the door open for a one-year supply that would be more in line with U.S. nonproliferation objectives as written in law.
In denying Kuperman’s request for a hearing, the NRC said he “has not adequately explained how a hearing would be in the public interest and assist us in making the required statutory and regulatory findings in this case.” The commission said the shipment meets the nonproliferation requirements of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and that using a military transport leaves a “minimal” threat that the material might be diverted.
It also noted an ongoing U.S.-European program – “Heracles” – to develop a LEU fuel that could be used at ILL’s reactor and other research sites. That fuel is not due to be available until 2027, four years after the expiration of the material covered in this export license request. “Dr. Kuperman’s concern, therefore, that this export could push back the date of the expected conversion is misplaced—even after this export the Institut Laue-Langevin will still need more HEU,” the NRC memo says.
“I’m not surprised that the NRC approved export of some HEU to fuel this reactor, as even my petition supported that. I am disappointed that the NRC dismissed my argument – demonstrably true historically – that exporting large amounts of HEU discourages and delays conversion to LEU fuel,” Kuperman told NS&D Monitor by email. “I am also disappointed that the NRC dismissed the danger that if the French reactor shuts down prematurely, the surplus of HEU that we will have exported could be misused in ways that would undermine US nonproliferation policy. This is not a hypothetical concern, because it has happened before.”
Separately, the NNSA on Sept. 27 filed a license application with the NRC for potential shipment of 2.8 kilograms of uranium-235, in no more than 3.0 kilograms of uranium, enriched to 93.35 percent, to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Facility. The HEU would be used to produce targets for irradiation in the National Research Universal reactor for production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. However, the export would occur only “in the circumstances of an extended global shortage of … Molybdenum-99, where other alternate technologies or sources are not available,” according to the application.
Kuperman said he would not intervene in this case, noting the nonproliferation community’s consistent support for ensuring sufficient amounts of medical isotopes.
The UT expert has petitioned the NRC to intervene in a license application to send 144 kilograms of HEU to a Belgian research reactor, and organized a letter from 30 nuclear experts expressing concern about the proposed shipment of 7.2 kilograms of weapon-grade material to France. The NRC has not ruled on either application.
The license applications for HEU exports to Canada, Belgium, and France are the only three currently under consideration by the NRC, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. On average, the agency files three applications per year for such license exports.
