August 2013 Plutonium Mountain Inside the 17-year mission to secure a dangerous legacy of Soviet nuclear testing By Eben Harrell & David E. Hoffman Project on Managing the Atom
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- 1. The Secrecy Barrier
- 2. The Unofficial Approach
- 3. The Legacy of Nuclear Testing
- 4. Safeguards Forever
- 5. Longer-Term Worries
- About the Project on Managing the Atom
- Project on Managing the Atom
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 35 raises the question of whether some combination of low-level cooperation and high-level over- sight might have proven more effective. The authors hope this paper will stimulate further interest in the lessons of Degelen Mountain and nonproliferation work. Here, we offer some preliminary thoughts about what was learned and what must still be done. 1. The Secrecy Barrier At the core of the Cold War confrontation between the superpowers lay deep mistrust and misperception. The United States and the Soviet Union did not see each other clearly, and the intense secrecy on both sides often led to blunders and miscalculations, from the “missile gap” of the 1950s through the “window of vulnerability” of the late 1970s—neither of which re- ally existed in the way officials perceived them. The secrecy has deep roots in the history of the Cold War and lasted well beyond it. Nuclear testing was shrouded in this secrecy. The vast test- ing ground at Semipalatinsk was part of the highly sensi- tive Soviet nuclear weapons complex. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 opened the eyes of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to the dangers of secrecy, but in the years that followed, his policy of glasnost, or open- ness, barely cracked open the long-hidden Soviet nuclear establishment. In 1987, a proposal by a progressive Soviet physicist, Yevgeny Velikhov, to take a delegation of American scientists and journalists to Semipalatinsk in order to improve confidence in verification (and thus support a test ban) was rejected by the Central Committee. The Americans didn’t go right away. Separately, in 1988,
Hecker and other U.S. scientists carried out a joint nuclear weapons verification experiment with Soviet scientists, an important step which laid the groundwork for more cooperation. When Ve- likhov finally took a group of Americans to Semipalatinsk in 1989, they were still kept at a dis- tance from anything sensitive, although they were permitted to install seismic detectors on Soviet territory. As this monograph shows, the secrecy did not end when the Soviet Union collapsed and Moscow withdrew from the newly-independent state of Kazakhstan. Rather, the Soviets left behind the Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-year mission to secure a dangerous legacy of Soviet nuclear testing 36 infrastructure and detritus of their mammoth Cold War weapons machine—the biological weap- ons factory at Stepnogorsk and the contaminated biological testing ground at Vozrozhdeniye Island, the chemical weapons facility at Pavlodar, and the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing polygon, among many others. In the case of Semipalatinsk, excessive secrecy prevented accountabil- ity within the Russian system so that materials were left unattended in the first place; it enabled complacency about the terrorism and proliferation risk posed by the unattended materials since very few people knew what was left behind and what risks it could pose; and it prevented key Russian decision makers from seizing the opportunity to act expeditiously when the US offered assistance. One of the great challenges of carrying out threat reduction in the years after the Soviet col- lapse was penetrating this secrecy and discovering the source of potential threats. It was a long, arduous process often made even more difficult by lack of cooperation or simple disorganiza- tion on the part of Russian authorities. Cooperation to beef up security at some sites was delayed by months or years over disputes over American access to the sites and what secrets might be revealed. Even today, continuing secrecy has blocked all cooperation to improve security at Rus- sia’s nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facilities, and there are no transparency mea- sures for Russia’s giant fissile material storage facility at Mayak, leaving the United States in the dark as to its use, although it was largely built with U.S. funds. Many of the Russians were well aware of the dangers. At least some of them were interested in overcoming the mistrust of the past and addressing the threats. Through a step-by-step process of trust-building, many barriers were overcome; U.S. security experts visited and helped improve security at all but a few of the facilities in Russia where nuclear weapons and nuclear materials reside. But there were strong countervailing forces in Russia—institutional and bureaucratic in- ertia, fears about spying, and a sense of national humiliation—that lingered long after the Soviet Union collapsed. The secrecy remained through the Yeltsin era and has become more intense in the Putin era in Russia. In the last two decades, there was never a thorough overhaul of the Soviet-Russian military-industrial complex, nor of the nuclear weapons complex or the secrecy in which they are shrouded. In the years immediately after the Soviet collapse, the Russians did not bother to alert Kazakh- stan to the plutonium left behind at Degelen Mountain because it was a problem they did not want to address. They did not see it as a risk, at least until Hecker showed them the photographs of the metals scavenging. The secrecy alleviated the need for Russia to contribute financially to the clean-up. Although Russia could ill afford the expense of a clean-up in the 1990s, its finances recovered in the 2000s and Russia could have made a major financial contribution. As successor to the Soviet nuclear arsenal, Russia must share responsibility for the site. An important lesson of the Degelen Mountain operation—a lesson that reverberates through all of the Cold War years—is the value and importance of seeking transparency. Facing the past is not easy for a country like Russia that suffered such an abrupt and turbulent collapse. It is hard to accept the idea of cooperation with a rich and powerful rival. Our point here is not to criticize those in the U.S. and Russia who have labored for years on threat reduction in the former Soviet Union—a two-decade-long effort that continues—but rather to highlight the lessons from their experiences. These lessons will be important for the next
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 37 mountain of fissile material, whether in North Korea, Iran or elsewhere. It will be important to coax the truth from those in a position to know about unattended risks, and find ways to over- come the barriers to mitigating them. 2. The Unofficial Approach The experience of the post-Soviet period vividly underscores the value of scientific exchanges and contacts. The role played by Hecker, Ristvet, and others in reaching out to Russian and Ka- zakh colleagues highlights the crucial nature of unofficial ties between both governmental and non-governmental scientists. The two were accompanied by many other officials from all three governments who played important roles, including Hemberger from Los Alamos and Weber at the Pentagon; Styazhkin and Stepanyuk from Arzamas-16; Kutsenko from Rosatom; and Kazakh scientists, including Kadyrzhanov. Could the same results at Semipalatinsk have been achieved if the three countries had carried out a treaty negotiation? It seems unlikely. Such high-level bargaining is often delayed for years by external and internal politics, and often becomes excessively legalistic. The informal approach has a successful track record in other threat reduction operations. Before the Degelen Mountain operation, Project Sapphire came about with similar personal relationships and contacts, nur- tured by Weber; security upgrades were launched throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex thanks to Hecker’s proactive engagement in the early days following the end of the Cold War. The same combination of initiative and low-level diplomacy on the part of U.S. officials and sci- entists led to the discovery and demolotion of the anthrax factory at Stepnogorsk in the 1990s. At Semipalatinsk, the collaboration allowed scientists and engineers to develop a common lan- guage and an agreed set of facts upon which they could base decisions and actions, providing the legitimacy needed to overcome suspicions. It was an essential prerequisite and enabler of mean- ingful action. At the same time, the effectiveness of Obama, Nazarbayev and Medvedev’s inter- vention at the Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 shows that while unofficial ties are helpful and even necessary, they aren’t entirely sufficient. In the end, the job took as long as it did in part because the highest levels of government were not pressing for action until the very end. The Degelen Mountain operation also suggests that government officials and experts on the ground, when faced with urgent security imperatives, may sometimes reach for temporary fixes rather than comprehensive and sustainable solutions. In the mid 1990s, the tunnel program elimi- nated the possibility that the Degelen Mountain test site could be used for further underground nuclear testing. But it was not designed to eliminate the threat of the theft of material in the tunnels. The recent work has dramatically reduced the threat that the remaining plutonium will be stolen and contribute to nuclear terrorism. But it may not have fully addressed longer-term dangers. 3. The Legacy of Nuclear Testing Loose plutonium remains a concern at Semipalatinsk – and potentially at test sites elsewhere. This suggests several steps that should be taken:
Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-year mission to secure a dangerous legacy of Soviet nuclear testing 38 • The United States, Kazakhstan, and Russia should make it a top priority to finish assess- ing the remaining plutonium and then securing whatever remains in vulnerable forms. • Russia should take the lead in assessing and addressing similar issues that may exist at the other former Soviet nuclear test site. One hundred thirty nuclear explosions were car- ried out at the Novaya Zemlya site in Russia’s Arctic north. That test site is still active, conducting conventional blasts with nuclear materials that are permitted under the Com- prehensive Test Ban Treaty, possibly including tests that could leave recoverable nuclear material behind. Much less is known about the legacy of testing there. • Test sites in other countries should be assessed as well. U.S. officials have concerns about the French testing site in the Algerian Sahara, and say that the French military has been uncooperative. 92 In the context of the nuclear security summit, the United States should seek to break through to the point where it feels ultimately reassured about the French test site. It seems plausible that testing sites in Pakistan, India, and North Korea may also pose a smaller threat—fewer and more primitive tests in these countries suggest that there is unlikely to be enough plutonium residue for a bomb, but ultimately no sub- stantial amount of recoverable plutonium should be left unsecured anywhere in the world. • The history of the Soviet test site at Semipalatinsk should also push the international community to press for entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States and several other nations have yet to ratify. The testing of nuclear weapons is a messy, dangerous business that undermines global security; a strong international norm against testing already exists. The international community should give that norm legal backing. The CTBT does not prohibit subcritical testing, which is still being car- ried out to support the safety, security, and reliability of nuclear stockpiles, and is likely to continue. But a clear lesson from Semipalatinsk is that such work must be conducted in an environment in which the fissile materials can be protected. 4. Safeguards Forever? While the concrete caps and plutonium-cement mixtures at Degelen Mountain have greatly re- duced the proliferation risks posed by this plutonium, they have not eliminated them. Even for the cemented plutonium, a state-backed enterprise might have the means to remove the pluto- nium, reprocess it, and reassemble it into a weapon. Indeed, this undertaking would likely be no more expensive or difficult than the conventional means of plutonium production, which requires the construction of a nuclear reactor and the reprocessing of spent fuel from the reactor. And even substantial non-state enterprises – like the major scavenging operations that were underway before – might someday be able to reach the plutonium, if monitoring of the site ceases. Legal mining operations within a few thousand meters of Degelen Mountain could be used to disguise a clandestine operation. The United States and Russia may wish to push President Naz- arbayev to expand the exclusion zone around sensitive sites in Semipalatinsk. 93 President Naz- 92 Interview with Ristvet and other DTRA officials. 93 At the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, Nazarbayev indicated that the threat reduction work at Semipalatinsk justifies the expansion of mining and development in the area. “All of the threats have been removed. The site exists today in totally differ- ent form. Kazakhstan can look into the future without any concerns and develop this territory,” Nazarbayev told reporters at the summit. See: “’Russian-U.S.-Kazakh Cooperation on Semipaltinsk site an example how to handle nuclear security’-Medvedev,”
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 39 arbayev’s commitment to nonproliferation has been solid, but he is now 72 years old, without a designated successor. His death could be followed by a period of uncertainty. Predicting the nuclear intentions of the next Kazakh regime is impossible – let alone those of whatever govern- ment may control this territory hundreds or thousands of years in the future. Although the IAEA was left out of the Semipalatinsk operation, a decision is needed as to wheth- er to put some form of safeguards in place for this material. The IAEA is planning to implement limited safeguards on geologic repositories containing plutonium-bearing spent fuel. But under IAEA rules, safeguards are not needed on material once it is “practically irrecoverable.” That term is usually used to refer to the tiny percentages of plutonium left over in high-level waste from reprocessing. U.S. officials told us that they hope the IAEA will declare the plutonium at Semipalatinsk practi- cably irrecoverable and therefore exempt from safeguards – but further assessment would cer- tainly be needed to determine whether this material meets the practically irrecoverable standard. 94
Establishing an accurate inventory of the Semipalatinsk plutonium and periodically account- ing for that inventory would be impossible. But the IAEA has long planned other means for Interfax, March 27, 2012. 94 In any case, this material was handled in a way that was outside the rules – Kazakhstan did not declare the material to the IAEA, and the three countries jointly decided not to bother with IAEA monitoring of it. So if it is determined to be practically irrecoverable, it will have gotten there by the opposite of the intended route with the states involved telling the IAEA what was done with previously undeclared material after the fact, rather than the IAEA having material under monitoring and then approv- ing a plan for processing it to a form no longer requiring safeguards. Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Plutonium Mountain: Inside the 17-year mission to secure a dangerous legacy of Soviet nuclear testing 40 safeguarding plutonium-bearing geologic repositories once non-nuclear-weapon states begin to establish them. 95 Indeed, Semipalatinsk could be used as a test-bed to demonstrate the tech- niques that will be needed in any case to monitor deep underground repositories filled with plu- tonium-bearing spent fuel, which are scheduled to begin opening in non-nuclear-weapon states in the next couple of decades.
Plutonium remains dangerous for millennia; human institutions rarely remain durable for more than a few hundred years. With substantial amounts of plutonium only covered with concrete caps, and other collections in relatively shallow burial, might some future Kazakh government try to recover the plutonium in Degelen Mountain and elsewhere for use in a bomb? A hundred or a thousand years from now, might this area no longer be watched, and scavengers with sophis- ticated equipment return to retrieve the plutonium? What precedent will be set by establishing what is in effect a plutonium repository with no international safeguards in a non-nuclear-weap- on state? Will either the concrete caps or the cement mixed with the plutonium prevent the plu- tonium from leaking out and causing environmental dangers hundreds or thousands of years from now? (The containment method used at Smipalatinsk was never analysed in detail as to whether it meets international safety standards for long-term storage of nuclear waste.) The unofficial approach, excluding the IAEA and other experts, did not encourage deep analysis of these ques- tions, or independent questioning. The mismatch between the lifetimes of plutonium and of human institutions is a problem that extends far beyond the steppes of Kazakhstan. The Cold War superpowers, and now more re- cent nuclear states, have accumulated over a thousand tons of weapons-usable nuclear material – enough for tens of thousands of nuclear bombs. Finding a sustainable means of rendering this material forever safe even without constant human intervention remains one of the central chal- lenges of the nuclear age. 95 Current thinking suggests that minimal unattended seismic monitoring will be required for geologic repositories for at least as long as human civilization continues pursuing nuclear activities on the surface. See, for example, Edwin S. Lyman and Harold A. Feiveson, “The Proliferation Risks of Plutonium Mines,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1998), pp. 119-128. About the Project on Managing the Atom The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) is the Harvard Kennedy School’s principal research group on nuclear policy issues. Established in 1996, the purpose of the MTA project is to provide leadership in advancing policy-relevant ideas and analysis for reducing the risks from nuclear and radiological terrorism; stopping nuclear proliferation and reducing nuclear arsenals; lowering the barriers to safe, secure, and peaceful nuclear-energy use; and addressing the connections among these problems. Through its fellows program, the MTA project also helps to prepare the next generation of leaders for work on nuclear policy issues. The MTA project provides its research, analysis, and commentary to policy makers, scholars, journalists, and the public.
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