U.S., Russia fulfill half of uranium processing commitments

RIA Novosti - World - U.S., Russia fulfill half of uranium processing commitments

WASHINGTON, October 1 (RIA Novosti, Arkady Orlov) - The United States and Russia announced Saturday that they had fulfilled half of their commitment to liquidate 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) by 2013. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said this stage testified to the success of bilateral cooperation. The Russian Foreign Ministry, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, the U.S. State Department and the Energy Department released a joint statement saying that 250 metric tons of HEU, the equivalent of 10,000 nuclear warheads, had been processed into low enriched uranium (LEU).

The statement said Russia turned HEU from nuclear warheads into LEU, in turn taken over by the U.S. to account for 10% of the energy generated at American nuclear power plants.