Nobel Peace Prize Centennial Symposium

 

The Conflicts of the 20th century and theSolutions for the 21st century

 

Holmenkollen Park Hotel Rica, Oslo; December 6-8, 2001

 

Session 6 (Friday morning, December 7)

Militarism and arms races -- Strengthen arms controland disarmament

 

Contribution by F. Calogero, Chairman, Pugwash Council,

speaking on behalf of the

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

 

Nuclear Terrorism

 

0.      Iam here on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs,co-recipient (with Joseph Rotblat) of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize; but,according to Pugwash tradition, I speak here in my personal capacity, sincethis text has not been approved by the Pugwash Council. The Pugwash Council didhowever issue recently (Sunday, 11 November, 2001) a Statement on "TheDangers of Nuclear Terrorism", which is reproduced below, and Pugwash isin the process of producing an Issue Brief with a more detailed analysis of this importantsubject; and what I write below is much in consonance with these interventions.

 

1.      Inthis contribution I focus on a single issue, namely the risk that a subnationalterrorist group manufacture clandestinely a nuclear explosive device in anapartment or a garage downtown in one or more cities, and I outline what shouldin my opinion be done to minimize this danger. I tried rather unsuccessfully toadvertise this issue over the past few years. 1 Perhapsafter the events of September 11, 2001, more attention will be devoted to thisproblem.

 

2.      Obviously,there also exist many other options a terrorist commando might adopt to wreackdestruction and sufferings on civil society, exploiting instruments of massdamage (including chemical or biological/bacteriological agents, or radioactivematerials) or other means (such as those used in New York on September 11,2001). The question of which one of these options is "easier" torealize is moot, as it largely depends on the specific competencies andcapabilities (including access to key materials) available to the terrorists,which themselves depend on unpredictable parameters related to the previouslife history of these individuals and the personal contacts available to them.

 

3.      Theacquisition of the capability to explode a nuclear device -- the "absoluteweapon" -- is certainly very appealing for any terrorist group who is benton causing major damage to civilian society. Such a capability is likely toconfer on its possessors a great feeling of power, and indeed it might also beused as an effective instrument for blackmail or retaliation. The scale ofdamage -- both in terms of deaths and sufferings, and of immediate destructionand lasting economic impact -- is likely to be much larger than that achievableby any other means -- with the possible exception of the widespread diffusionof a lethal and highly infectious pandemic disease such as might be caused by aparticularly virulent strain of smallpox effectively dispersed, say, in a majorairport.

         ButI believe it is unlikely a subnational terrorist group might get hold of anuclear weapon, because these instruments of mass destruction -- wherever theyexist -- are effectively protected against theft and diversion. It is mucheasier to get hold of, and to smuggle to the target area, the key material (seebelow) necessary to manufacture there a nuclear explosive device. This is thetopic on which I focus in this contribution.

 

 

4.      Mostpeople believe that it is quite difficult to manufacture a nuclear explosivedevice. They are mistaken. If the key material (see below) were available, avery small group of terrorists -- possibly even a single person -- mightmanufacture in an apartment or a garage a device which would then have asubstantial probability to produce a nuclear explosion comparable to that whichdestroyed Hiroshima. The number of individuals who master the key knowledge toimplement successfully such a project is vast; indeed, it seems to me theindividual(s) involved in this enterprise need not have any knowledge ofnuclear physics or of engineering that could not be acquired in a few weeks byan intelligent technically educated person from completely open, and easilyavailable, sources (such as encyclopedias); nor would skills be needed beyondthose of a competent bricoleur; nor would any significant health hazards beencountered. 

 

5.      Sucha nuclear explosive device might be assembled in the downtown area of one ormore large cities; it would not be transportable, and its explosive yield mightbe hard to predict with any precision in advance. But it is likely that, onceset off -- by remote control, or by a delayed timer allowing ample time forgetaway -- each such explosion would cause a sudden catastrophe much much worsethan any previous terrorist act, to an extent that is hard to envisage.

 

6.      Whatfortunately stands in the way of the realization of such a project is thedifficulty to acquire the basic "raw material" to manufacture such adevice, namely weapon-grade Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU).

         Uraniumis an element that is widely present in nature (even as a tiny fraction of seawater); but natural uranium is mainly made of an isotope -- U-238 -- which isnot easily exploitable as a source of nuclear energy (and not at all in itsexplosive variant); while the isotope U-235, which is instead capable tosustain a nuclear chain reaction and therefore to allow the explosive releaseof macroscopic quantities of nuclear energy, is only a tiny fraction -- 0.7% --of natural uranium.

         Themajority of nuclear reactors for the production of electricity use as fuel LowEnriched Uranium (LEU), in which the concentration of U-235 has been increasedfrom 0.7% to, say, 3-4% . To manufacture easily a nuclear explosive device oneneeds HEU, which contains, say, more than 90% U-235. The quantity needed to manufactureone such device depends on the degree of enrichment (how much beyond 90%) andon details of the design, hence on the skill of the manufacturer; 50 kilogramsare probably sufficient even to an unsophisticated practitioner, 100 kilogramsare certainly more than enough (we shall use hereafter this quantity asnotional unit).

 

7.      Theenrichment of uranium is a difficult and costly technological feat, which onlyfew States master. For instance Saddam Hussein's Iraq tried to produce HEU inthe context of a clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons (in violationof the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty to which Iraq was a Party), but afterspending billions of dollars it managed to produce only gram quantities of HEU.

         HenceLEU and HEU are costly commodities. The latter is mainly used for nuclearweapons, and for the reactors of nuclear-propelled submarines which, due to therequirements of compactness, tend to use HEU rather than LEU. Moreover, somesmall research reactors are fueled by HEU, but few such reactors are stilloperational, and there is a worldwide policy to phase them out and not to buildany one any more.

         Althoughthe concentration of U-235 in LEU is only of the order of 3-4%, hence much lessthan that in HEU (over 90%), the separative work (hence the cost) of producingLEU (from a given quantity of natural uranium) is a substantial fraction ofthat needed to produce HEU (from the same quantity of natural uranium). It iseasy to understand the basis of this apparently paradoxical fact: 1,000 atomsof natural uranium contain 7 atoms of U-235 and 993 of U-238; to transform thisinto LEU (enriched, say, to 3.5%) one must shed 800 atoms of U-238, so that oneis left with 200 atoms, 7 of which are U-235; and clearly it is subsequentlysufficient to shed less than 200 atoms of U-238 to get HEU. The separative workneeded is roughly proportional to the amount of U-238 separated out in theenrichment process. The cost of the operation is approximately proportional tothe amount of separative work, since this is an extremely energy-consumingoperation; during the peak of the Cold War the amount of electrical energy usedin the Oak Ridge enrichment plant in Tennessee was comparable to the entireenergy consumption of France. Hence the cost of producing LEU is a substantialproportion of the cost to produce HEU; conversely, if one de-enriches HEU toLEU, only a minor fraction of the separative work gets wasted.

        

8.      Thereis of course no free market of HEU, and also the sale of LEU is carefullysafeguarded. But the quantity of HEU that exists in the world is exceedinglylarge due to the exaggerated accumulation of this strategic material during theCold War, especially in the United States and in the Soviet Union; hence thehigh risk that some of it be stolen or hijacked.

         Ofparticular concern is the very large quantity of HEU in the former Soviet Union(now mostly in Russia), which amounts to well over 1,000 metric tons (onemillion kilograms -- morethan enough to manufacture ten thousand nuclear explosive devices). The concern is motivatedby the economic difficulties affecting the former Soviet Union including Russiaand the Russian nuclear complex (MinAtom), entailing that not all this materialis adequately secured against theft or diversion.

         Muchhas been done to improve the safeguarding of this material, via CooperativeThreat Reduction and other programs to which the USA contributes quitesubstantially (Nunn-Lugar funds, approximately $400 million per year over thelast few years). Much more, however, should be done. Other countries (Japan,Europe) have also contributed to this endeavor, but only by marginal amounts.

 

9.      Theseprograms focus – in addition to nuclear disarmament -- on strengthening MaterialProtection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) at dozens of sites throughoutthe former Soviet Union, and also at preventing the brain drain towardscountries of concern of experts on nuclear weapon technology.

But clearly the most effective way todecrease the risk of nuclear terrorism is to eliminate altogether the basic rawmaterial -- HEU -- needed for the easy manufacture of nuclear explosivedevices. From a technological point of view it is quite obvious how to achievethis goal: it is enough to de-enrich HEU to, say, less than 20%, so that itcannot be used any more to produce a nuclear explosion. This is astraightforward task, and one which is extremely difficult -- in fact, for anyterrorist group, quite impossible -- to reverse. Moreover, because both the USAand Russia have now much more HEU than they can possibly use for their nucleararsenals - which are fortunately in the process of being reduced -- it is alsopolitically possible indeed easy to agree and proceed in this direction.

 

10.     Infact an agreement was reached for the de-enrichment by Russia of a substantialquantity of its HEU -- 500 metric tons -- and the sale of the LEU so producedto the USA. This was an important achievement, but the modalities of itsimplementation were seriously flawed, inasmuch as they transformed adevelopment motivated by well justified security concerns into a commercialdeal, the logic of which turned out to be quite contradictory to the securityconcerns that motivated this deal to begin with. The origin of thistransformation can be traced to the announcement by the Clinton Administrationthat the deal would be effected "at no cost to the American taxpayer"-- probably motivated by the need to sell such a deal, entailing an overallpayment to Russia of some $12 billion, to an unsympathetic Congress dominatedby the Republican Party. Indeed the idea is that Russia de-enriches itsweapon-grade HEU to reactor-grade LEU, sells the LEU so obtained to the USA,who then sell it to electrical utilities as fuel for nuclear reactors, therebyrecuperating the funds paid to Russia.

But unfortunately commercial considerationsbecame so uppermost in determining the specific terms of the agreement, thatits implementation was staggered over a twenty year period, mainly in order notto affect excessively the market price of LEU -- an absurd time scale in the contextof the tremendous dangers associated with the presence of large quantities ofinsufficiently guarded HEU in Russia. Matters were made much worse by assigningthe implementation of the agreement to the United States EnrichmentCorporation, an institution that clearly had no interest to begin with inimporting enriched uranium from Russia, and which was moreover simultaneouslytransformed from an agency fully owned by the Federal Government into a privatecompany, that could of course not be expected to lose money because of nationaland international security considerations. As a consequence the HEU Deal -- towhich USEC assigned the public relation name "Megatons to Megawatts"-- was, in a context of worldwide declining demand for LEU, much hampered andits implementation delayed, so that it had to be rescued more than once byinterventions of the Federal Government and, after almost ten years from thedate of the original agreement (1993), the LEU transferred to the USAcorresponds to only little more than 100 tons of Russian HEU.

 

11.     Itis clearly necessary and urgent that the HEU Deal be revisited by the USAAdministration, in the light of the much greater urgency in preventing the riskof nuclear terrorism that should prevail after September 11, 2001. But this isnot enough: some thought should be urgently focussed on ways and means toaddress the risk implicit in the existence of the enormous stocks of excess HEUin Russia (and also in the USA), the size of which will be increased by theprogress in nuclear disarmament that has been very recently agreed to byPresidents George W. Bush and V. Putin (although the time scale -- 20 years --of this welcome development also appears excessively drawn out). The goalshould of course be to eliminate this dangerous material as quickly aspossible. Let me quote from my CERN Lectures1 an approach to achievethis goal.

"An obvious scheme -- to the extentconcern focuses on the HEU in the former Soviet Union, most of which is inRussia -- is to subsidize its de-enrichment. Indeed, it would be wise toprovide such a substantial financial inducement that Russia -- and specificallyMinAtom, the institution in Russia that is responsible for the oversized andnow underfinanced Russian nuclear complex (including both military and civilianinstallations) -- proceed in this direction at the fastest possible rate,carefully striving to retrieve all available HEU. A secondary advantage of thisapproach would be to infuse funds in the MinAtom operation, funds which mightcontribute to prevent catastrophic developments resulting from the overalldecay of this crucial institution. But let me emphasize that this positiveaspect is secondary. Even if it were not to emerge because the funds take otherdirections, nevertheless the main goal -- elimination of the dangerous material(HEU) -- would be achieved by the scheme outlined below.

It seems to me that a reasonable scheme toimplement this approach will be to offer MinAtom an immediate cash award forevery quantity of HEU that is de-enriched -- perhaps a reasonable amount wouldbe US$ 10 for each gram of high-grade HEU that is eliminated, but of course theexact amount should be negotiated and mutually agreed. Clearly for the schemeto work enough transparency should be provided by MinAtom to guarantee first ofall that the production of new HEU is definitely stopped, and secondly that thede-enriched HEU is properly measured, accounted for and safeguarded (possiblyby the International Atomic Energy Agency). The award could be considered as aloan without interest, to be given back by Russia when the LEU gets sold, overtime, to utilities worldwide, for the production of electricity. (The order ofmagnitude of the expected revenue might be twice the cash value of the awardmentioned above, although such an estimate is quite tentative as the futuremarket price of LEU is hard to predict.) The main lender might be the USA, butother affluent partners (European Union countries, Japan, Canada, etc.), whichcertainly also have a stake in preventing the tremendous risk entailed by thelarge available stocks of HEU, should also be willing to pitch in. There is nodoubt in my mind (also on the basis of explorations I have made with relevantindividuals) that the offer of such a scheme -- or variants of it, all havingthe goal to promote the elimination of HEU at the fastest possible rate --would evoke a positive reply by Russia, and probably as well from all othercountries possessing (certainly much smaller) stocks of HEU, to which similaroffers should also be made. The exceptions would be the more affluentcountries, in primis theUSA, which should be expected to dispose of their own stocks of HEU withoutexternal help."

 

12.     Finally,a few words about Plutonium, which is the (only) other indispensable rawmaterial -- additional, or alternative, to HEU -- out of which nuclear bombsare now made.

Indeed, the disposition of Plutonium inways that minimize the possible adverse effects of its wide availability asregards nuclear-weapon proliferation has been much more at the center ofattention2 than the analogous problem for HEU -- in spite of thefact that the quantities of HEU now available are larger, perhaps by an orderof magnitude, than those of Plutonium. The main reason of this fact is that, while-- as explained above -- the technological route to eliminate HEU is quiteobvious, the way to dispose of Plutonium so that it will no more pose anuclear-weapon proliferation risk is a much more complicated issue, bothtechnologically and politically -- for reason which shall not be detailed here.

         Butwhile the availability of Plutonium certainly poses a risk with respect to thepossible acquisition of nuclear weapons by States, it does not really pose --in my opinion -- a significant risk for the possible clandestine manufacture ofa nuclear explosive device by a subnational terrorist group. Indeed thetechnological expertise required to manufacture a nuclear explosive devicebased on Plutonium (including experimentation with very sophisticated conventionalexplosives and electronic equipment, and the fact that handling Plutoniumentails much greater health hazards than it is the case for HEU) is so muchgreater than in the case of HEU, to most likely exceed that available to anysubnational terrorist commando.

         Itis for this reason that, to lessen the tremendous threat of nuclear terrorism,it is in my opinion justified -- indeed, necessary and urgent -- to focusprimarily (although, of course, not exclusively) on HEU, with the goal toeliminate as much of this dangerous material as possible, as quickly aspossible.

 

 

 

ENDNOTES

 

1 See, for instance:“Fast-track the uranium deal”, Bull. Atomic Scientists,November/December 1997, pp. 20-21; reply to letter, Bull. Atomic Scientists,January/February 1998, p. 66; "Therisk of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for terrorism", paper co-authoredwith Giancarlo Tenaglia and presented at the 1999 Annual Pugwash Conference,Rustenburg, South Africa, 8-13 September, 1999, and at the 1999 AmaldiConference, Mainz, Germany, 6-10 October, 1999 and published in the Proceedingsof these meetings; "The risk of terrorist uses of nuclearexplosions", Section 3.8 of Issues in Arms Control,Lectures given in the Academic Training Program of CERN, February 12-16, 2001,CERN Report 2001-004, ISBN 92-9083-187-1.

 

2 For a recentoverview of the risks associated with the availability of nuclear-weaponmaterials see: M. Bunn, The next wave: urgently needed new steps to controlwarheads and fissile materials, April 2000, available at http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/Library.nsf/pubs/Nextwave,and the literature quoted there, including in particular: H. Baker and L.Cutler (Co-chairs, Russia Task Force, U. S. Secretary of Energy AdvisoryBoard), A report card on the Department of Energy's nonproliferationprograms with Russia, final draft of 10 January, 2001, available atwww.hq.doe.gov/seav.

 

 

 

 

Appendix

 

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

 

Statement of the Pugwash Council

 

Monday, 12 November 2001, London, UK

 

 

The Dangers of Nuclear Terrorism

 

 

         Thehorrific nature of the September 11 attacks has demonstrated the ability ofinternational terrorist networks to carry out well-planned and complexoperations that can kill thousands of innocent civilians.  The potential for biological, chemical,and/or nuclear terrorism has greatly increased.

 

         Whilethere has long been concern about nuclear material being acquired by non-stategroups, reports in the past few days indicate that nuclear weapons may now, orsoon will be, available to terrorist groups.    The challenges facing the internationalcommunity from terrorism have been greatly compounded by the world’sfailure to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons.

 

         Mostimmediately, the members of the United Nations must adopt and effectivelyimplement the proposed international conventions on international terrorism andon nuclear terrorism.

 

         Moregenerally, the large quantities of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) that arepoorly controlled and otherwise unaccounted for in the former Soviet Union anddozens of other countries demand immediate attention and action by the worldcommunity.

 

         HEUposes the danger that it is far easier to manufacture into a nuclear weaponthan is plutonium, so much so that even sub-national terrorist groups couldaccomplish the challenge.  Europeanand Asian governments especially need to join the United States in providingaid to the Russian government in controlling and destroying this fissilematerial (enough to build 20,000 nuclear bombs) through greatly acceleratedfunding and commitment to such programs as the Cooperative Threat ReductionProgram (Nunn-Lugar).  In addition,the international convention on the physical protection of nuclear materialsmust be strengthened and expanded, and greater efforts made to safeguardfissile materials in civilian use.

 

         HEUcan, however, be readily diluted with natural uranium to a low-enriched levelwhere it has high commercial value as a proliferation-proof fuel for civilnuclear reactors.  Here again, animportant opportunity exists for Europe and Japan to work with the UnitedStates in purchasing such fuel from Russia and greatly reducing availablesupplies of weapons-grade uranium.

 

         Muchwork will be needed on a broad range of fronts, from recognizing and addressingthe root causes that facilitate the growth of terrorist networks, to bringingto justice those who commit mass murder and crimes against humanity.

 

         Inorder to safeguard global peace and security, it is essential that nationalgovernments and the world community recognize that the twin dangers ofinternational terrorism and nuclear proliferation pose entirely new threatsthat demand immediate and sustained attention.  

 

 

 

         ThePugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, co-recipient of the 1995Nobel Peace Prize  with its Founderand then President, Sir Joseph Rotblat, was founded in 1957 with the aim ofreducing and abolishing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.   In the coming weeks, Pugwash willpublish Issue Briefs with more in-depth analysis of ways of protecting againstnuclear and biological terrorism.