The Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) Program, Return of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU): Air Shipment of Energetic Radionuclides

U.S. President Barak Obama has spearheaded an international effort to strengthen global nuclear materials security and prevent nuclear terrorism. In 2010, he convened the leaders of 47 nations in Washington, DC, for the first global Nuclear Security Summit. There, 29 countries pledged more than 50 specific commitments to secure or eliminate nuclear materials, and prior to a second summit held Seoul in 2012, already roughly 90 percent of those national commitments had been completed. A third Summit is scheduled to take place in the Netherlands in 2014. The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manages the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear material located at civilian sites worldwide, both domestic and foreign. Both GTRI and RRRFR work closely with IAEA and the Russian Federation (RF) State Corporation for Atomic Energy (Rosatom) to safely and securely transport this material. By the end of 2013, the RRRFR Program will have completed 53 shipments of former Soviet Union fresh or spent highly enriched uranium (HEU) from fourteen (14) countries back to the Russian Federation for recovery and reuse. In like manner, by the end of 2016, the complementary USDOE/NNSA Foreign and Domestic Fuel Return Program will have completed over 50 shipments including 1,824 kilograms of HEU from 28 countries and an additional 1,077 kilograms of HEU from countries of origin for HEU from states other than the US or RF.