Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium

Abstract

The National Academy of Sciences report, {open_quotes}Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium,{close_quotes} warned that the vast excess stocks of fissile materials from ongoing weapons dismantlement pose a {open_quotes}clear and present danger{close_quotes} to international security and made recommendations in four major areas. 1. The report recommended an urgent program to improve security and accounting for weapons-usable nuclear materials in Russia; recent reports of thefts of such materials heighten the importance of such a program. 2. The report recommended a broad transparency regime involving declarations of all stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, cooperative measures to confirm and clarify those declarations, monitoring of nuclear weapons dismantlement, and monitoring of excess materials in storage. 3. It recommended that bilateral monitoring of excess materials in storage be rapidly supplemented with international safe- guards and that these materials be stored under agreed, stringent standards of accounting and physical security, approximating the standards applied to assembled nuclear weapons - which the study called the {open_quotes}stored weapons standard.{close_quotes} 4. The study made detailed analyses and recommendations with respect to long-term disposition of excess weapons plutonium, arguing that plutonium disposition options should: a. minimize the time during which the excess plutonium is stored in forms readilymore » usable for nuclear weapons; b. preserve safeguards and security during the disposition process (the stored weapons standard); c. result in a form from which the plutonium would be as difficult to recover for weapons use as the larger and growing quantity of plutonium in commercial spent fuel; and d. meet high standards of environment, safety, and health protection.« less