Inventory of nuclear materials sought
VIENNA, Austria – U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Saturday called on countries to find and secure nuclear and other dangerous material to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.
Abraham, speaking at a two-day conference of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, said it was important to create an inventory of such high-risk materials worldwide, including substances at nuclear-enrichment or reprocessing plants.
The challenge is “to think creatively, to predict the unforeseen, and to stay several steps ahead of a determined and imaginative enemy,” Abraham said.
Abraham announced the initiative in May as a $450 million plan to rid the world of the “dirty bomb” threat by keeping nuclear materials out of terrorist hands.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, concerns have grown that terrorists might be trying to acquire material for a dirty bomb – a device that uses conventional explosives to spread low-level radioactive material over city blocks.
It has no atomic chain reaction and requires no highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Both materials are normally kept under tight security, so they are difficult to obtain.
Instead, the radioactive component is of lower-grade isotopes, such as those used in medicine or research. If a dirty bomb were to be detonated, the radiation release probably would be small.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency – the U.N. nuclear watchdog – estimates as many as 110 countries do not have adequate controls over radioactive devices that could be used to build an explosive device that would spread radioactive material.
Abraham said Saturday that prevention requires international collaboration, the sharing of the latest technological and scientific expertise and joint shouldering of the expenses of securing and disposal. He announced that the Department of Energy will give $3 million to the IAEA to help finance such efforts.
The conference was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency.