GTRI: Reducing Nuclear Threats | National Nuclear Security Administration

Mission

In 2004 NNSA established the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) in the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation to, as quickly as possible, identify, secure, remove and/or facilitate the disposition of high risk vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials around the world that pose a threat to the United States and the international community.

GTRI’s mission is to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological material located at civilian sites worldwide. GTRI achieves its mission via three initiatives which provide a comprehensive approach to preventing terrorists’ access to nuclear and radiological materials. These three initiatives are:

1. Convert: Convert research reactors and isotope production facilities from the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU);
2. Remove: Remove excess nuclear and radiological materials; and
3. Protect: Protect high priority nuclear and radiological materials from theft.

Accomplishments

Since its inception, GTRI has accelerated its nuclear security efforts and made significant progress to reduce the risk posed by vulnerable civilian nuclear and radiological materials, which could be used by terrorists to make an improvised nuclear device or a radiological dispersal device (RDD), or "dirty bomb.”

GTRI has converted or verified the shutdown of 82 HEU fueled research reactors; removed more than 3,400 kilograms of HEU and plutonium – enough for more than 135 nuclear bombs; secured more than 775 bombs worth of HEU and plutonium associated with the BN-350 reactor in Kazakhstan; secured nearly 1,200 radiological sites around the world containing more than 20 million curies – enough for thousands of dirty bombs; and recovered more 31,000 orphan and disused radiological sources containing more than 18 million curies.

GTRI has greatly accelerated its efforts to reduce nuclear and radiological threats since President Obama’s pledge in Prague in April 2009 to secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years.

Convert

Since President Obama’s Prague speech, GTRI has:

• Successfully converted to LEU fuel or verified the shutdown of 20 HEU research reactors in 12 countries, including Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and the United States.
• Accelerated the establishment of a reliable supply of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) produced without HEU by establishing partnerships with South Africa, Belgium, and the Netherlands to convert Mo-99 production from HEU targets to LEU targets and with four domestic commercial entities to establish non-HEU-based Mo-99 production in the United States.

Remove

Since President Obama’s Prague speech, GTRI has greatly accelerated the removal of weapons-usable nuclear material, including:

• Successfully removed 1380.5 kilograms of HEU and plutonium (enough material for approximately 55 nuclear weapons); and
• Removed all weapons-usable nuclear material from 10 countries and areas, including: Romania (June 2009), Taiwan (September 2009), Libya (December 2009), Turkey (January 2010), Chile (March 2010), Serbia (December 2010), Mexico (March 2012), Sweden (March 2012), Ukraine (March 2012), and Austria (December 2012).

Protect

Since President Obama’s Prague speech, GTRI has:

• Completed physical protection upgrades at more than 1,000 buildings totaling more than 10,000,000 curies –  enough for approximately 10,000 dirty bombs; and
• Removed more than 10,000 at-risk radiological sources totaling more than 6,500,000 curies – enough for more than 6,500 dirty bombs.