Russia sends another shipment of low-enriched uranium to U.S.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050817/41172900.html


MOSCOW, August 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has sent another shipment of low-enriched uranium (LEU), 42 metric tons, to the United States under the bilateral HEU (highly-enriched uranium)-LEU program, according to a report by Russia's Federal Agency for Nuclear Power (Rosatom).
Russia and the U.S. signed an agreement on the use of HEU extracted from nuclear weapons in February 1993. Under the agreement, Russia is expected to supply U.S. nuclear power plants with LEU processed from HEU by Rosatom enterprises.
Russia has delivered about 7,350 tons of LEU to the U.S. since its first shipment in 1995, that is, half of the total amount stipulated in the bilateral agreement.
To fulfill the obligations of the agreement, Russia will have to dismantle around 10,000 nuclear warheads.
The energy equivalent of the supplied uranium is 3 trillion kWh. About 750 billion cubic meters of natural gas or 650 million tons of oil must be burnt to generate that amount of energy.
Russia has already received over $5.3 billion for its uranium shipments and is using the revenue to bolster security at its nuclear power plants, and for defense conversion and environmental clean-up.