Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
News
Publish date: November 22, 2005
News
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced November 7 that the United States will remove 200 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, also known as HEU, from the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. He said this is the single largest amount of nuclear material ever removed from the nuclear weapons stockpile in the history of the US weapons program. The material that is being removed is the equivalent of 8,000 nuclear warheads, and the related fissile material will be used in the future for non-weapons purposes.
Bodman made his announcement during the annual nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The secretary said 160 metric tons of HEU will be repurposed for naval ship propulsion systems. Another 20 tons will be used for space missions and research reactors, he said, while the remaining 20 tons will be blended down to low enriched uranium for civilian nuclear power reactors or research reactor use.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.