Russia and the United States are preparing a successor to a 1993 agreement for converting Russian nuclear warhead material into fuel for U.S. power plants, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 23).
The Megatons to Megawatts program, which now provides roughly half of fuel used at U.S. nuclear reactors and generates about 10 percent of the nation's electricity, is scheduled to expire in 2013. Moscow and Washington are now in talks aimed at replacing the pact, according to a U.S. diplomat and a federal nuclear official.
The potential successor agreement, referred to in industry circles as HEU-2, could tap fuel from nuclear weapons decommissioned under a bilateral arms control treaty now being negotiated (see GSN, Nov. 9; Andrew Kramer, New York Times, Nov. 9).