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19 July 2006
U.S.-Origin Nuclear Fuel Returned from Argentina
NNSA program removes highly enriched uranium from Argentine nuclear reactor
Washington -- Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have removed more than 3 kilograms of U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium from an Argentine nuclear research reactor and returned it to the United States, the NNSA says.
The return of the uranium fuel, contained in 24 fuel assemblies, represents the first of three steps in an agreement to remove or dispose of all highly enriched uranium originating from the United States still in Argentina, the NNSA said in a press release July 19.
The next step will be to convert the Argentine research reactor from using highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used to produce nuclear weapons, to low-enriched uranium fuel. The final step will be to return spent HEU fuel from the reactor to the United States.
The United States and Argentina have been cooperating over the past year in several nonproliferation activities, according to the NNSA release.
NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks applauded "the leadership role that Argentina is taking to minimize and … eliminate the use of [highly enriched uranium] in civil nuclear purposes." He added that the endeavor "is part of NNSA's broad global effort to reduce the risk of terrorists acquiring nuclear material." (See related article.)
The NNSA, an agency in the U.S. Department of Energy, works closely with the international community to remove or dispose of excess and vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear material to reduce the risk of terrorists acquiring it for use as a weapon of mass destruction.
The HEU removal operation was conducted under NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative.
For further information about U.S. nonproliferation efforts, see Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Additional information about the NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative is available on the NNSA Web site.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
