Russian President Vladimir Putin’s signing Monday of a decree halting his nation’s participation in a bilateral agreement with the United States through which each country would dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium may represent the highest-profile casualty of the U.S. domestic battle over a costly facility under construction in South Carolina.
The Kremlin cited hostile U.S. actions and failure to uphold its end of the deal in disposing of its own excess plutonium as cause for suspension of the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), a nonproliferation deal signed in 2000 to eliminate enough material for roughly 17,000 nuclear weapons. An NS&D Monitor translation of the decree is available here.
“The decision by the Russians to unilaterally withdraw from this commitment is disappointing,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday. “The United States has been steadfast since 2011 in implementing our side of the bargain and we would like to see the Russians continue to do the same.”
Asked if the U.S. would continue to implement its side of the agreement, Earnest said, “I don’t have any changes to our posture to announce at this point.”
Elizabeth Trudeau, State Department press operations director, called Russia’s reference to threats to strategic stability “disingenuous” and said the U.S. “seeks a constructive dialogue with Russia on strategic issues, but it is Russia instead who continues to engage in destabilizing activities.”
The collapse of the PMDA might not be as black-and-white as official statements suggest, however; it may have been the result of the convergence of complex domestic and international political challenges, starting with the Department of Energy project in South Carolina. DoE and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration declined to comment on Russia’s decision.
U.S. Progress Hampered by MOX
At the heart of the problem lies the U.S. domestic dispute over the fate of the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is being built at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., and is intended to dispose of the U.S. plutonium under the agreement.
The Obama administration wants to kill the project in favor of another means of processing the plutonium it says is far cheaper and faster, a proposal that has run into opposition from Congress, particularly the South Carolina delegation.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz recently called the MOX approach a “practically speaking impossible task” due to the time and cost involved; DoE MOX projections put the life-cycle price tag at $50 billion to $60 billion, though the program’s supporters dispute those figures.
A Sept. 23 updated DoE project baseline report denounced “misleading” information provided by MOX contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services in its cost and schedule estimates for the facility. DoE estimated MOX facility construction alone would cost $17 billion, while the contractor said it would be roughly $10 billion. Additionally, while DoE projected completion of construction in 2048 – based on annual congressional appropriations of $350 million for construction – the contractor said it would finish building the facility by 2029.
The PMDA, however, says the target for MOX construction completion and startup of operation is 2016 and that both countries are to begin plutonium disposition in 2018.
Under the Obama administration’s proposed alternative approach, the U.S. would dilute the plutonium at the Savannah River Site and send the final product to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for final storage. Some researchers warn that WIPP, which has been closed to waste shipments following two accidents in February 2014, may not be able to accommodate 34 metric tons of plutonium.
The federal government said earlier this year that WIPP would reopen in December 2016, but DoE officials have acknowledged in recent months that it will be difficult to meet this deadline. Meanwhile, the Russians argue that this new U.S. approach does not ensure irreversible elimination – meaning the U.S. would maintain the option to later recover the plutonium.
Ed Lyman, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, said in a telephone interview with sister publication NS&D Monitor that calling the dilute and dispose method reversible is “a lot of baloney” and that plutonium would actually be harder to recover under the new U.S. plan. Because WIPP is not a retrievable facility – it is intended to eventually cave in on itself – “it’d be a mess for the U.S. to try to go in and recover [the plutonium] and it would be observable,” he said.
Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, said this week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that the MOX facility “is only two-thirds finished and the project has been suspended. The United States has not modified its reactors for the use of this fuel. Ultimately, U.S. experts have concluded that the United States will need another 20 to 30 years to start disposing of weapon-grade plutonium in keeping with US-Russian agreements.”
The agreement was amended in 2010 to change disposition methods, with Russia choosing plutonium irradiation in fast-neutron reactors. The United States selected solely the MOX method, rather than its earlier approach that involved both MOX and immobilization, or a mixing of plutonium with high-level radioactive waste.
The PMDA now says that plutonium disposition “shall be by irradiation of disposition plutonium as fuel in nuclear reactors or any other methods that may be agreed by the Parties in writing,” providing the option for either party to change its means of disposition, given that it gives the other side at least 90 days’ advance notice.
The United States “has not officially notified Russia of its intention to use an alternative disposition method,” Ulyanov said, adding that the agreement, as updated in 2010, “does not stipulate the possibility of the underground burial of disposition plutonium” as the U.S. is proposing at WIPP.
Lyman said, however, the U.S. did try to consult with the Russians: “They wanted to explain the approach to them, but the Russian position was: until Congress makes the decision, we don’t want to start negotiations on this.”
The United States allowed the Russians to change their own method in 2010 from the use of light-water reactors to fast-neutron reactors. It is therefore likely that Washington hoped Moscow would make a similar concession in this case, Lyman said. The tense state of U.S.-Russian relations seems to have all but eliminated that hope.
The Russian Argument
Ulyanov said his nation has taken steps to fulfill its commitment by completing construction of the country’s MOX facility at the Zheleznogorsk site of the Mining and Chemical Combine, which produces fuel assemblies for the BN-800 fast-neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant; and bringing to full power the BN-800 for irradiation and disposition of plutonium.
Sergei Kiriyenko, the CEO of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corp. who just this week was appointed first deputy chief of Russia’s presidential executive office, said last September: “We built our plant in 2.5 years at a cost of a little over $200 million, or 9.6 billion rubles. The plant is working and is now reaching industrial capacity.”
The target set by the PMDA for completion of construction of Russia’s fuel fabrication facility was 2011-2012; 2012-2013 for completion of construction of the BN-800; and 2013-2014 for completion of modifications to BN-600 – the other fast-breeder reactor at Beloyarsk – for the use of MOX fuel.
Pavel Podvig, an independent researcher who heads the Russian Nuclear Forces project, affirmed in a telephone interview with sister publication NS&D Monitor that Russia has begun producing MOX fuel. Russia’s program, he said, is “warmed up, so they have the fuel fabrication facility, they have the reactor, BN-800 is running.” Russia has produced a couple hundred fuel assemblies since last year and plans to produce more plutonium-based MOX in upcoming years, he said.
Asked if this fuel was produced from the material covered by the PMDA, Podvig said that although there is no official information available, “the fuel fabrication process is built so it could work with the [weapon-grade] plutonium that will come from these 34 tons.”
“The program will go ahead just as it would under PMDA,” Podvig said. “Nothing would change on the ground. The only thing that would change is there would be no [International Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring on this activity.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this week that the plutonium covered by the agreement would remain outside of military use – a policy outlined in Putin’s decree as well.
Lyman argued, however, that Russia would not necessarily draw from the same stock of plutonium now that it is no longer obligated to do so. “Russia has a couple dozen tons of reactor-grade plutonium that they may use instead of processing the ex-weapons material,” he said.
Both sides had invited the U.N. nuclear watchdog to begin developing monitoring procedures in accordance with the PMDA, intended to give the agency authority to certify elimination of the plutonium. Despite the lack of progress in this area, Podvig said the U.S. could try to revive cooperation by moving forward with dilution and disposal but with full IAEA monitoring, making its elimination of plutonium transparent.
The Political Problem
Lavrov outlined several other political motivations behind Russia’s decision, which he called a “measure of last resort,” citing as examples of U.S. hostility the economic sanctions against Russia for its incursions into Crimea and eastern Ukraine, expanding NATO military infrastructure and increasing the number of U.S. troops near the Russian border, and a policy of containing relations with Russia.
“Our decision is a signal to Washington that it cannot use the language of force, sanctions and ultimatums with Russia while continuing to selectively cooperate with our country only when it benefits the US,” according to Lavrov. “If Washington adjusts its political course and fully eliminates the circumstances it created that adversely altered the political, military and economic balance in the world, we will be ready to resume the agreement,” he said.
Putin has submitted a bill to the Russian legislature outlining conditions under which the nation would agree to restore the agreement, a move Podvig called purely political. The conditions include a reduction of U.S. military infrastructure and troops in countries that joined NATO after September 2000, the lifting of all U.S. sanctions against Russia, and compensation for the damage caused by those economic penalties.
The NATO countries targeted by Putin’s condition are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, and Croatia. The United States is unlikely to fulfill any of the conditions, which suggests it may be impossible to revive the agreement.
Lyman pointed to these political issues to explain Russia’s decision, arguing it was never about the substance of the agreement. “That’s just blowing smoke,” he said. “This is just a tit-for-tat retaliation for breaking off the Syrian talks and the general deterioration of relations between the U.S. and Russia.”
The Russian government also this week suspended agreements with the U.S. for cooperation on nuclear- and energy-related scientific research and development and the conversion of Russian research reactors from highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel.
Reactions from Congress
Lawmakers who have been fighting to sustain the MOX program are calling the news an Obama administration nuclear policy failure that has given Russia the opportunity to claim higher ground while taking advantage of political tensions between the two countries in their involvement in the Middle East.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement that the development “is just another example of how President Obama will be leaving office with the world a much more dangerous place than it was when he was elected.”
“President Obama and his Department of Energy’s deliberate assault on the MOX program and South Carolina need to stop immediately. As it is, our next president will inherit a mess,” he added.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said recent statements from Russia indicate that suspension of the agreement “is a direct result of this Administration’s mishandling of the MOX project.”
“Time and time again, President Obama has tried to close the facility for political, inaccurate reasons, without any concern for what the implications would be for the international community,” Wilson said in prepared comments, calling it one of the president’s “failed nuclear policies.”
Regardless of the outcome of the MOX project, the question remains: what comes next for U.S.-Russian political and technical nonproliferation and nuclear security cooperation? The upcoming U.S. presidential election only offers greater uncertainty.
According to Podvig, restoring the agreement seems unlikely. The logic of Russia’s decision “just escapes me,” he said. “I don’t think they seriously think that the conditions that they put forward . . . could be met at any time.”
Moreover, he said Russia’s withdrawal could save U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by undermining the main argument of U.S. lawmakers lobbying to save MOX, who now “don’t have anything to support it for.”
Putin could have kept the U.S. government “on the hook” by leaving the agreement in force, thereby sustaining the pro-MOX lobby in Congress and helping foster uncertainty over the program, Podvig said. Essentially, Russia had greater leverage over U.S. domestic MOX debates while the agreement was in force; by suspending it, the Kremlin can no longer compel the U.S. stick to its agreed-upon disposition approach.
“I’m not too optimistic that anything is going to happen before the election,” Lyman said. “In fact, this may be a Russian ploy to just put all these things on hold and hope to get a better deal in the next administration.”