John Ikenberry must be loving it. The prominent liberal internationalist thinker has expressed his strong desire for nuclear disarmament on numerous occasions. Likewise, he has been a spokesman for cooperation and strengthening economic ties as means of building peace and prosperity in international relations. The Megatons to Megawatts Program between the United States and Russia is a hallmark example of this positive sum thinking.
The program began in 1993 as part of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear arms reduction agreements between the two countries. In accordance with the program, Russia began to sell its downgraded nuclear fuel for civilian use in the United States. Russian government subsidiary, Tekhsnabexport, recycles high-enriched uranium (HEU) into low-enriched uranium (LEU), and sells it to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), an agent of the U.S. government. Since the program began, almost 400 metric tons of HEU have been recycled into over 10, 000 LEU, equivalent to about 15, 000 nuclear warheads eliminated. The program's total value is about 12 billion dollars.
Needless to say, the program is good business for the Russians. But it is also extremely important for the United States. By different estimates, nuclear energy accounts for between 10 and 20 percent of all civilian energy consumed in America. Out of all the nuclear energy consumed, between 40 and 50 percent comes from Russia as recycled LEU. What used to be Soviet nukes is now an integral part of American energy consumption.
When two states that used to be arch enemies recycle their nuclear weapons and trade in a mutually beneficial manner, it cannot but make a liberal internationalist smile. Hell, if increased security can be achieved alongside economic gain, it can find approval even among some realists. Given the amount of resources that go into the arms production, if more programs of arms recycling were to be conducted, economic gains could potentially alleviate the costs of the reforms that the Obama administration is planning to implement. Maybe it is something to ponder about while sitting under a lamp working on a recycled Soviet nuke.
2 comments:
What about the American nukes? Does this program only reduce Russian HEU while leaving America's at its high level, or is America also turning HEU into LEU for use in local nuclear power plants? Seems like the Russians might not like the idea of reducing their HEU while the Americans keep their stock piled high.
Excellent point, as the previous poster wonders, since these are bilateral disarmament agreements, the US must be reducing its arsenal in parallel. What happens to this fissile material?
It is my impression that this whole program was set-up as a financial incentive for the (at the time struggling) Russian Federation to follow through with the treaty. The Soviet Union had created scientific and nuclear "cities" that were organized around some government-owned factories. These factories stopped running as the Soviet Union ran out of funds and collapsed, and so the program supported the population of these towns by putting them in charge of dismantling the weapons and reprocessing them.
As a side note, here's some pictures of one of these "ghost towns", abandoned because the strategic facilities are not operated.
This leads to the downside of this program, which is that the fuel has to travel between many points in order to go from HEU to LEU, which increases the risk of theft.
But enough with the pessimism, the whole idea is that weapons are being used in a not-destroying-the-world-several-times-over fashion!
Post a Comment