Limiting The Accumulation Of Weapon Usable Plutonium

This is congressional testimony for a hearing on "Stemming the Plutonium Tide: Limiting the Accumulation of Weapon-Usable Nuclear Material" before the Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights, House Committee on Foreign Affairs on March 23, 1994. The prepared statement focuses on three areas. What are the problems arising from the spread of plutonium? Are the steps being taken by the United States and other countries sufficient to stem the plutonium tide? What other measures need to be implemented by the United States and other countries?

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This report examines the problem of rapidly accumulating weapon-usable fissile materials and proposes an agenda to help the United States and other countries manage these materials. Weapon-usable fissile materials come from both dismantled nuclear weapons and the spend fuel from civilian nuclear power plants. This report should be of interest to nuclear nonproliferation planners and analysts in the United States, the former Soviet republics (FSRs), and other countries, and also to nuclear energy planners. The study started in October 1991. By June 1992, we had briefed our interim recommendations to planners and analysts in various DoD offices and also in the National Security Council, Livermore National Laboratory, and the nuclear industry. We also solicited reactions from public interest groups, particularly on the ramifications of our key recommendation: that the United States purchase highly enriched uranium from the FSRs after it is diluted and also their weapon-grade plutonium. The present report incorporates the latest data on nuclear weapon dismantling and elaborates on the proposed agenda, but its basic recommendations differ little from the interium proposals.

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