MOSCOW (AP) - Enriched nuclear fuel the former Soviet Union provided to Libya two decades ago was returned to Russia on Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
| I assume we checked that. |
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified Atomic Energy Ministry spokesman as saying 88 nuclear fuel assemblies - bundles of rods that contain fuel used for reactors - were returned from the Tajura research center outside Tripoli, which had received it between 1980 and 1984. The Tajura facility includes a 10-megawatt reactor built in 1980 with equipment from the Soviet Union. A statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said it helped Libya in recent days with the removal of weapons-grade uranium from the research facility for transport back to Russia. The uranium was 80 percent enriched and was in the form of fresh, unused fuel, the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement. It was in fuel components containing about 28.7 pounds of fissile uranium-235, as well as about 6.6 pounds of non-fissile uranium, the statement said.
| 28.7 pounds of 80% enriched U-235, assuming no further loss from centrifugation, will get ya about 23-24 pounds of 99% enriched U-235. Okay, assume some losses, but you end up with 15 to 18 pounds. That's one small low-yield device. |
The $700,000 fuel return operation was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under a three-way program with Russia and the IAEA to address nuclear safety and proliferation risks. The IAEA said Russia intends to blend it down into low-enriched uranium, making it unsuitable for use in a nuclear weapon. Uranium enriched to 80 percent of the U-235 isotope is barely usable for nuclear weapons. Bombmakers prefer 90-percent or more enriched uranium. The IAEA says 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium is considered "significant," that is, sufficient for a bomb. |