U.S., Vietnam to begin
Nonproliferation Project at Dalat Reactor
Inside Missile Defense by Keith J. Costa
March 28, 2007
(For personal use only)
U.S. and Vietnamese officials have signed contracts to start
converting the Dalat research reactor in Vietnam to burn low-enriched uranium
rather than highly enriched uranium, the Energy Department's National Nuclear
Security Administration announced earlier this month.
Highly enriched uranium can be used for nuclear weapons, and U.S. officials,
participating in NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative, have been working in
recent years with several nations to limit the use of the fissile material in
reactors across the globe. Low-enriched uranium cannot be used for weapons as
readily as the highly enriched material.
Under the watchful eyes of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the "fresh"
highly enriched uranium at the Dalat reactor will be transported to Russia,
where it originated, for safe and secure disposal, according to a March 19 NNSA
statement.
The United States helped build the Dalat facility in the early 1960s. It was
shut down in 1975, the year South Vietnam fell to communist forces, but then
restarted by the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.
"We commend the government of Vietnam and applaud their leadership in taking
this significant step to protect nuclear material," Thomas D'Agostino, NNSA's
acting administrator, said.
The contracts will help implement a nonproliferation deal made between the
United States and Vietnam during President Bush's trip to the Asian nation last
October, the announcement states.
NNSA manages an array of nuclear nonproliferation programs for DOE, including
GTRI, which will administer work at Dalat. Vietnam also has promised to boost
security at the facility, according to the announcement.
GTRI's goal is to identify, recover and secure "high-risk vulnerable nuclear and
radiological materials around the world as quickly as possible," the
announcement states.
Already, the GTRI program has returned more than 495 kilograms of Russian-origin
highly enriched uranium to Russia that had been stored in places like Bulgaria,
the Czech Republic, Libya, Poland, Romania and Serbia, the announcement states.
Up to 46 reactors across the globe have been converted from highly enriched
uranium operations to low-enriched uranium ones, it adds.
The highly enriched material secured through GTRI would be enough to build nine
nuclear bombs, according to a March NNSA fact sheet on the program. GTRI
officials also have secured 470 "radiological sites" worldwide that stored
enough material for 7,700 "dirty bombs," the fact sheet adds.
