Allowing new exports of U.S. highly enriched uranium to Belgium would pose a significant security threat and violate both the letter of the law and the spirit of global efforts to wean nuclear facilities off the weapon-usable material, a University of Texas professor said Thursday in a petition against a license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Alan Kuperman, director of UT Austin’s Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, is requesting authorization to intervene and an NRC hearing on the license application to ship 134.2 kilograms (295 pounds) of uranium-235, contained in up to 144 kilograms of uranium and enriched up to 93.2 percent, to fuel a research reactor operated by the Studiecentrum Voor Kernenergie (SCK-CEN).
That amount would be sufficient to power a number of nuclear weapons if it fell into the wrong hands, according to the petition. This is particularly worrisome given newspaper reports earlier this year that thieves had stolen equipment from SCK-CEN’s BR-2 reactor in 2013 and that ISIS operatives linked to 2015 terrorist strikes in Europe had taken hours of video of a high-level SCK-CEN official. The New York Times also quoted a Belgian Federal Agency for Nuclear Control spokesman as saying in February there were “concrete indications that showed that the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks had the intention to do something involving one of our four nuclear sites.”
“Any commerce in highly enriched uranium presents security risks. In the Belgian case those risks are heightened,” Kuperman said in an interview Thursday. “We know this facility has been targeted by terrorists.”
SCK-CEN was on summer holiday through Monday, and no press contacts were available to comment. The organization said earlier this year, in the wake of the March 22 suicide bomb attacks on the Brussels airport and metro system, that access to its facilities was “strictly limited” and under “increased vigilance.”
Kuperman also said the 10-year export license window, through Dec. 31, 2026, would violate the “Schumer Amendment” to the 1992 Energy Policy Act, which says U.S. weapon-grade nuclear material cannot be exported to a foreign nuclear research or test reactor unless no other fuel is available and the United States is working on a nonproliferation-resistant alternative. “It is impossible for the Commission to determine in advance if this condition would be satisfied for the entire 10-year duration” of the license, the petition states, meaning “it would violate the letter and spirit of U.S. law for the Commission to approve” the application.
Finally, the BR-2 reactor could be converted to using low-enriched uranium “silicide” fuel, which could not be used in a nuclear weapon, Kuperman added in his petition.
Kuperman said he might accept an export license for a lower number of years, but that the decade-long request would deter SCK-CEN from converting the reactor to use LEU, thus sustaining the threat it poses. He said it appears that all HEU export licenses approved by the NRC since 2012 have been for one year of fuel.
The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has worked for years to convert reactors in the United States and abroad to use low-enriched uranium. The NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative and predecessor programs have converted 20 reactors in the United States and converted or verified the closure of another 67 in foreign nations.
Minimizing civilian use of HEU was also a key goal of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Security Summit process, which ended with the fourth session earlier this year. At the 2016 event, the United States and 21 other nations agreed to a number of steps toward this goal, including refraining from using highly enriched uranium in new facilities and converting or closing existing reactors that use the material.
Nine research reactors in the United States and Europe still run on HEU fuel, as do upward of two dozen in Russia, Kuperman told NS&D Monitor.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which would provide the HEU from its Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, referred questions to the NRC. The material would be converted into fuel assemblies for the reactor by BWX Technologies and transported by Edlow International, which is also the license applicant.
There are no active Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for export of HEU, which are usually provided for foreign research reactors or medical isotope production, according to agency spokeswoman Maureen Conley. However, several applications are being considered. Each goes through a multipart review ending with the commission itself. “The timeline can vary depending on the time it takes for the Executive Branch to receive government-to-government assurances and provide its views to the NRC,” Conley said by email. “The timeline can further be extended if there is a request for a hearing … on the export license application.”
The agency’s criteria for approving export licenses includes that the material be placed under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, that it not be used for production or research of nuclear explosive devices, and that it be placed under adequate physical security.
It was not immediately clear if any other objections have been filed against the license application. The deadline for comments or hearing requests is mid-August.
Isotope Production
The NRC recently received a separate license application to export HEU to Belgium, in this case for medical isotope production.
The applicant is the NNSA’s Y-12 National Security Complex, which would provide 6.7 kilograms of uranium-235, contained in no more than 7.2 kilograms of uranium and enriched up to 93.5 percent, to the Institute for Radioelements (IRE), according to the July 21 application.
IRE manufactures radiochemical products including molybdenum-99 and iodine-131, along with other radiopharmaceutical products.
The license application cites the window of shipments as open from Oct. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2017. “Dates do not reflect actual ship dates,” according to the document. “Time-frame indicated for shipment to support target fabrication, target irradiation and processing schedules to meet one year isotope production demand until conversion to LEU targets.”
Along with the NNSA, the other parties to the HEU export would be Consolidated Nuclear Security, the management and operations contractor at Y-12; AREVA TN International, which would provide transport services in France; and SCK-CEN and the operators of research reactors in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Poland, which would conduct target irradiation.
In 2014, the NRC issued a license for the export of 7.28 kilograms of uranium-235, contained in 7.8 kilograms of uranium and enriched up to 93.35 percent, to IRE.
At the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, the United States, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands highlighted both the current importance of using HEU for medical isotope production and the danger. The four nations pledged to assist conversion of European production away from HEU processes by 2015, and eventually to halt all use of weapon-grade uranium for medical isotope production in the three European states.
Kuperman said he has not determined whether he will request to intervene in this license application. He and any other parties would have 30 days after a notice is published in the Federal Register.
