by Andrew E Kramer, NYT News Service 11 November 2009, 12:44am IST
For about 10% of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs and most were the Russian ones.
“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry. Russia has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry.
Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America’s 104 nuclear reactors are paying attention to President Barack Obama’s efforts to conclude a new arms treaty. In the last two decades, nuclear disarmament has become an integral part of the electricity industry, a fact not well known to most Americans.
Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 % of electricity in the US — by comparison, hydropower generates about 6 % and solar, biomass, wind and geothermal together account for 3 %. Utilities have not publicized the Russian bomb supply line for fear of spooking consumers.
But at times, recycled Soviet bomb cores have made up the majority of US market for low-enriched uranium fuel. Today, former bomb material from Russia accounts for 45% of the fuel in American nuclear reactors, while another 5% comes from American bombs, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association in Washington.
Treaties at the end of the Cold War led to the decommissioning of thousands of warheads. Their energy-rich cores are converted into civilian reactor fuel. Once the US and Russia negtiate anew treaty, more of the nuclear material will be available for US nuclear reactors.
source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Russias-old-N-weapons-power-American-homes/articleshow/5217238.cms
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