Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement

The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement is a contract between the USA and Russia .

The contract was signed in 2000. An amending protocol was signed by the Foreign Ministers in April 2010 and entered into force in July 2011.

The agreement regulates the conversion of weapons- grade plutonium that is no longer required into MOX fuel elements that are used to generate electricity. Each side is supposed to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium. This could produce 17,000 nuclear weapons. In total, the USA has about 90 tons of weapons-grade plutonium and Russia about 128 tons.

For cost reasons, the US side plans not to convert its own plutonium into MOX fuel elements as agreed, but rather to dilute it with non-radioactive material. However, the dilution can be reversed (with great effort). On October 3, 2016, Russian President Putin ordered the agreement to be suspended because the US side had failed to fulfill its obligations.

Web links

• Contract text:
  • English - Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation Concerning the Management and Disposition of Plutonium Designated as No Longer Required for Defense Purposes and Related Cooperation
  • Russian - Соглашение между Правительством Российской Федерации и Правительством Соединенных Штатов Америки об утилизации плутония , заявленного как плутоний, не являющийся более необходимым для целей обороны, обращению с ним и сотрудничеству в этой области
• Plutonium Disposition Program , National Nuclear Security Administration, June 26, 2013.
• Anatoli Diakov: Disposition of Excess Russian Weapon HEU and Plutonium , Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, February 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement ( Memento of the original dated October 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. / State.gov, Office of the Spokesman, April 13, 2010 
2. ↑ Spiez Laboratory: Plutonium - where to put it? ( Memento of October 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), August 2002.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Pavel Podvig: Can the US-Russia plutonium disposition agreement be saved? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 28, 2016.
4. ↑ Obama seeks to terminate MOX project at Savannah River , World Nuclear News, February 10, 2016.
5. ↑ Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 03.10.2016 № 511