18,000 Warheads Converted to Nuclear Fuel

July 14th, 2012 by Jake Richardson

Well over four hundred tons of uranium have been converted from former Soviet Union nuclear warheads. Called “Megatons to Megawatts,” the program was started by USEC, a global energy company and leading supplier of nuclear fuel. It was planned to last twenty years and is a partnership between industry and government to convert 500 metric tons of Russian weapons-grade uranium to enriched uranium for use in making electricity in commercial reactors.

The overall goal of the program is converting about 20,000 nuclear warheads for fuel, and it is about ninety percent achieved, so approximately 18,000 warheads have been converted at this point. The sixteen thousand milestone was achieved in 2010. Twenty thousand conversions should be completed by the end of 2013.

The uranium produced so far by the Megatons to Megawatts program is equivalent to about 193 billion gallons of gasoline. Nuclear power plants using the uranium recovered from the warheads have produced up to ten percent of the electricity generated in the United States.

Some of the ICBMs containing the warheads were once aimed at the United States. Enriched uranium from weapons is replacing over 10,000 tons of uranium from mines annually and providing over ten percent of fuel for reactors worldwide. For many years, there has been a legitimate concern uranium from the commercial supply for fuel would wind up in weapons, but what has happened is the reverse. Much more uranium from weapons is being used for fuel to generate electricity. Furthermore, the amount of enriched uranium in weapons stockpiles is many times more than the annual world mine production of uranium.

Whether or not one is opposed to the use of nuclear power plants, at least this particular use of uranium from weapons appears to have a benefit to humankind due to the dismantling of many potentially devastating bombs. The project also is taking weapons-grade uranium offline so to speak and rendering it useless for war when it is converted into electricity.

USEC is the business acting on behalf of the U.S. government and JSC “Techsnabexport” (TENEX) does so for Russia.

The United States reportedly has also been converting some of its own war heads into fuel for nuclear power plants.

Image Credit: Public Domain, the image is not of Russian warheads, but is intended merely to be an example of a warhead.

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Tags: bombs, nuclear fuel, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons fuel, nuclear weapons power, nuclear weapons to electricity, nuclear weapons uranium to fuel, uranium, weapons grade uranium

About the Author

Jake Richardson Hello, I have been writing online for some time, and enjoy the outdoors. If you like, you can follow me on Google Plus.

Anne

“For many years, there has been a
legitimate concern uranium from the commercial supply for fuel would
wind up in weapons, but what has happened is the reverse”

Now that is an interesting comment in light of the developments in Iran over the past decade or so. With the excuse of ‘peaceful nuclear power’ they may or may not have developed nuclear weapons.

Whether they actually did, is largely irrelevant. The uncertainty alone is enough to get the whole region in a panic and increase oil prices as a result. The hidden cost of nuclear power….
Anne

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–For
many years, there has been a legitimate concern uranium from the
commercial supply for fuel would wind up in weapons, but what has
happened is the reverse."Now that is an interesting comment in light of the developments in Iran over the past decade or so. We are still uncertain whether they have developed nuclear weapons or not. But the uncertainty is enough to upset the whole region and drive oil prices up. The hidden cost of nuclear power….

For
many years, there has been a legitimate concern uranium from the
commercial supply for fuel would wind up in weapons, but what has
happened is the reverse.Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1hRdq)
tibi stibi

adding these bomb’s made nuclear full very cheap. as soon these run out the price will increase. hopefully anding the nuclear all to getter
Ross

Nuclear weapons are a poor weapon anyway from an age before accurate targeting.

Now they could only be of use to terrorists and mad regimes bent on mass destruction.

Assuming the US and other nuclear powers never want to repeat detonating a bomb indiscriminately over a civilian target they should work hard to get rid of them completely. It seems that there are also better ways of deflecting asteroids than sending Bruce Willis up with a nuke.