Belgium drops request for US bomb-grade uranium

Belgian nuclear officials have withdrawn a request to the US for 144 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU)—enough for several nuclear weapons—to fuel a research reactor. Instead, fuel for the Belgian Reactor 2 (BR-2) will be fabricated in the US and exported to Belgium over several years. The decision reduces the amount of weapons-grade material shipped at any one time, says Alan Kuperman, coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Documents issued by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the US Department of Energy said the HEU, enriched to 93.2% ²³⁵U, would initially have been shipped to France for fabrication. The final product would have fueled BR-2 for at least five years. Kuperman had petitioned the NRC in March 2015 to block the export as dangerous and contrary to US nonproliferation policy, which generally limits HEU exports to a one-year supply of fuel.

The Belgians withdrew their export request in February, well before the 22 March terrorist attacks in Brussels. The New York Times reported last month that a high-ranking Belgian nuclear official had been under surveillance by suspected Islamic State operatives; that news raised fears that terrorists were trying to obtain nuclear materials.

Kuperman’s petition argued that exporting such a large quantity of bomb-grade uranium would reduce Belgium’s incentive to develop and switch to fuel of low-enriched uranium (less than 20% ²³⁵U) for its research reactor, a change which the US has been advocating for nearly four decades. Moreover, the proposed export risked creating a surplus of bomb-grade uranium in Europe if the Belgian reactor shut down prematurely. In a statement, Kuperman said he will continue petitioning against a proposed export of weapons-grade uranium to the Institut Laue–Langevin (ILL) in France. The BR-2 and the ILL are the only remaining US-supplied HEU-fueled reactors abroad.

The US continues to operate six HEU-fueled research reactors and also supplies bomb-grade uranium to a Canadian research reactor to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99.

Ironically, because the NRC had already begun processing the NNSA’s shipment request, it won’t be able to refund the $18 000 export license application fee. Unlike most agencies, which are funded by annual appropriations, the NRC obtains all of its revenues from user fees.