March 13, 1997
LONDON--A book released
today by Oxford University Press for the Stockholm International
Peace Institute (SIPRI), entitled Plutonium and Highly Enriched
Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies, provides
vital information for world leaders and international policy experts
to improve international security, monitor nuclear commerce and
reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
"The vast inventory of the basic components of nuclear weapons--plutonium and highly enriched uranium--is still ill-defined, under-protected and under-regulated," according to the authors, David Albright, William Walker and Frans Berkhout. "Everyone's security is undermined as long as this is allowed to continue."
Albright is President of the Institute for Science and International Security of Washington D.C. Walker is a Professor of international relations at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and Berkhout is a Senior Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex in Great Britain. They are independent researchers supported by charitable foundations and donors.
"There is a common misperception that, with the end of the Cold War, the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials have decreased. But in many ways, the problems of control have grown more serious, and solutions are still a long way off," they said.
When Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin meet later this March, they need to rejuvenate and intensify their bilateral efforts to control and dispose of excess stocks of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
The authors estimate that by the end of 1996, the world inventory of plutonium was around 1,300 tons and the inventory of highly enriched uranium was about 1,750 tons. Production for both materials began in secret in the United States during World War II. In 1945, when the first nuclear bombs were detonated, the amounts of plutonium and highly enriched uranium could be measured in kilograms.
Through the beginning of the next century, the key security issues will be reducing military inventories of plutonium and highly enriched uranium and placing them under proper multilateral safeguards and disposing of them, they said. "There is no easy technical fix to reducing stockpiles; both technical and political action are required. The longer we wait, the more difficult the problem and the larger the size and more dispersed the inventory of dangerous nuclear materials."
The authors sought to answer five questions: how much plutonium and highly enriched uranium was produced for military purposes, how much plutonium is in spent nuclear fuel, how much plutonium has been separated from civilian spent fuels, how much plutonium and highly enriched uranium was produced outside of international safeguards and what are the main gaps in the information available.
They describe where the materials are, in which forms and under which control. They acknowledge that information of actual inventories is still very incomplete. They also provide an extensive analysis of the policies and international agreements that need to be developed if the risks arising from plutonium and highly enriched uranium are to be held in check.
The three authors collaborated once again, with the support of SIPRI. Their previous book, called World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, was cited by the journal Nature as "essential reading for all interested in international affairs and an indispensable reference book for researchers."
Since the publication of the first edition, the authors learned that governments often do not even know their own military stockpile inventories.
They found, in preparing the 1996 revisions, that much new information is available and that initiatives in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament policy now depend on accurate and open material inventories. Countries need this information in their efforts to increase confidence that excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium are not misused or do not fall into the wrong hands.
"Governments and the public do not pay enough attention to weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium," they said.