Megatons to Megawatts Program
The Megatons to Megawatts Program, successfully completed in December 2013, is the popular name given to the program which is also called the United States-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement. The official name of the program is the "Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Disposition of Highly-Enriched Uranium Extracted from Nuclear Weapons", dated February 18, 1993.[1] Under this Agreement Russia agreed to supply the United States with low-enriched uranium (LEU), obtained from high- enriched uranium (HEU) found to be in excess of Russian defense purposes. The United States agreed to purchase the low enriched uranium fuel.
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The Megatons to Megawatts program was initiated in 1993 and successfully completed in December 2013. A total of 500 tonnes of Russian warhead grade HEU (high enriched uranium, equivalent to 20,008 nuclear warheads) were converted in Russia to nearly 15,000 tonnes tons of LEU (low enriched uranium) and sold to the US for use as fuel in American nuclear power plants. During the 20-year Megatons to Megawatts program, as much as 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States was generated by fuel fabricated using LEU from Russian HEU.[6]
During this period, on a comparatively modest basis, the U.S. government has also been converting some of its excess nuclear warhead HEU into power plant fuel. Efforts have also been undertaken to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of converting warhead plutonium into fuel to augment nuclear fuel for U.S. power plants.
Nuclear industry sources forecasted high demand trends that would require finding other uranium supply sources after the completion of the Megatons to Megawatts agreement.[6] In 2011 TENEX and USEC signed a long-term contract (Transitional Supply Agreement – TSA) for the provision of enrichment services to the United States that could see annual deliveries after 2015 reaching a level of around half the annual supply volume under the HEU Deal.[7]
Currently, no plans have been announced for new initiatives such as the Megatons to Megawatts program. Numerous issues concerning nuclear power plants, the financial crisis, the emergence of huge supplies of natural gas and safety have clouded predictions for the future demand for uranium fuel and nuclear power plants.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
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