Plutonium is changing its charge: the United States is giving the legacy of the Cold War into private hands

The United States plans to transfer weapons-grade plutonium from old nuclear warheads to private companies. We can talk about about 20 tons of reserves left over from the Cold War. It is assumed that the business should recycle some of this material into fuel for a new generation of nuclear power plants, but theoretically this volume can be enough for 2 thousand nuclear warheads. The risks of the American initiative are many: from the theft of radioactive materials and technology leakage to the weakening of the arms nonproliferation regime. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Nuclear business

The plutonium left in the United States after the end of the Cold War was stored for decades at protected government facilities in South Carolina, Texas and New Mexico. Now Washington intends to allow private business to access this material. In total, the Americans have about 50 tons left, but only part of it will be transferred to the civilian sector.

The initiative is being promoted personally by US President Donald Trump. Back in May last year, he instructed the Ministry of Energy to curtail the previous plutonium disposal program and create a mechanism for companies working with new-generation reactors to use this material.

Five organizations want to gain access to the radioactive element, the American media write. Among them is Oklo, a company that develops modular reactors. As well as startups related to nuclear fuel reprocessing and new generation reactor technologies: Exodys Energy, SHINE Technologies, Standard Nuclear and Flibe Energy.

Oklo is convinced that plutonium from state reserves will help solve one of the main problems of the new nuclear industry — fuel shortage. "Fuel supply restrictions are one of the key factors hindering the development of promising reactors," said Jacob DeWitt, co—founder and CEO of the company.

However, not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea. Firstly, the seized plutonium can still be used to create nuclear weapons, and the specified volume would theoretically be enough for about 2 thousand warheads. The economic side of the project also causes additional skepticism. The United States has already tried to implement similar programs for reprocessing plutonium into fuel, but they turned out to be too expensive.

Congressmen Ed Markey, Don Beyer and John Garamendi wrote a letter to Trump last September asking him to abandon the plan. In their opinion, the program increases the risks of nuclear proliferation, makes no economic sense and may affect the US defense capability.

Democrats have some questions about Oklo's connection with the head of the US Department of Energy, Chris Wright. Prior to his appointment as minister, he was a member of the board of directors of this company, and now it is his department that oversees the program from which Oklo can directly benefit. Wright himself left the board of directors after being confirmed in office, but Democrat Ed Markey believes that such a combination creates a risk of conflict of interest.

The atomic dispute

As a result of the Cold War, Russia and the United States had a huge amount of weapons-grade plutonium. As a result, some of the warheads were dismantled, but the radioactive components did not disappear from them. Only the surpluses that Moscow and Washington have pledged to dispose of would theoretically be enough for about 17,000 nuclear warheads.

In order to eliminate this material from circulation, Russia and the United States signed an agreement on its disposal in 2000. The main goal is to convert the radioactive material into a form from which it cannot be quickly returned to warheads. It entered into force in 2011 and stipulated that each side would dispose of at least 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

The parties also prescribed a disposal method: plutonium must be converted into mixed uranium-plutonium MOX fuel and used in reactors. Russia has followed this path: today MOX fuel is used at the Beloyarsk NPP.

The United States also planned to build its own MOX fuel production line, but the project seemed too expensive and time-consuming to them. As a result, Washington abandoned it and chose another option — dilution of plutonium with subsequent disposal as radioactive waste.

This led to a conflict. The dilution of the material does not match the original agreement, as the plutonium is being converted into a form from which it can theoretically be extracted again. In 2016, Russia suspended its participation in the agreement, accusing the United States of departing from the agreements. And in 2025, she denounced this agreement.

Against this background, the current American initiative looks like a new stage of the same discussion, experts say. That is, formally, the use of plutonium as fuel does not contradict the very idea of the agreement. But this is clearly not a bilateral program with agreed control mechanisms.

The price of error

By itself, the idea of using plutonium for the needs of nuclear power plants is quite working, Dmitry Stefanovich, a researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security, tells Izvestia.

— Moreover, that very excess weapons-grade plutonium was supposed to be processed in this way in accordance with the Russian-American agreement on its disposal. However, the American side refused to implement it, while the BN-800 reactor is already operating in Russia," he recalled.

In the case of the transfer of the element into private hands, there are many risks. The main one is that before irradiation in the reactor, weapons—grade plutonium remains a material of direct value for the creation of nuclear weapons.

— The more stages of processing, transportation, production sites and commercial participants, the more difficult it is to ensure physical protection, accounting and control. This does not mean that private companies will necessarily fail, but the price of any mistake, leak, sabotage or bankruptcy of a program participant in this case is incomparably higher than in conventional energy," political analyst Ilya Graschenkov explained to Izvestia.

There are also political risks. Plutonium, declared unnecessary for defense purposes, has so far been viewed primarily as the legacy of the arms race, which must be irreversibly withdrawn from military circulation. Now it is proposed to use it as an energy resource.

— This may create an inconvenient international precedent: other states will be able to refer to American practice, justifying the expansion of their own programs for reprocessing and using plutonium for civilian needs. It is this risk — not of an immediate violation of the treaty, but of a gradual erosion of non—proliferation norms — that is the most sensitive," the expert noted.

At the same time, there is no direct contradiction to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The NPT does not prohibit recognized nuclear Powers from using their own plutonium in peaceful nuclear energy.

However, the United States is in a special position: the IAEA guarantees for them apply only to voluntarily offered facilities and materials, and not in the comprehensive regime that is mandatory for non-nuclear States.

"Therefore, there may not be a legal problem, but the question of trust remains: will the program be accompanied by transparent international control and confirmation that the material is indeed irreversibly removed from the arms trade," the analyst concluded.