“True,” Ross acknowledged. “But, Madam Secretary, the main question with throwing all this money at Russian nuclear weapons and material in the name of stopping proliferation and preventing terrorist acquisition is this: Who is minding the store? Who is verifying where the money is going or that the in-Russia programs are actually being carried out?
“The answer is — no one. It would be far better for America to go hands-on with Russia in actually overseeing and using U.S. contractors to carry out the necessary work in the Kola Peninsula, PA Mayak, and elsewhere in Russia and remove the heavy duty nuclear waste to an international disposal site.”
“D’you really think Putin would go for that?” Crisp asked.
“Not a chance — unless we force the issue. Perhaps with the ultimatum.”
The Secretary asked, “What’s the status of the warheads reduction?”
“By the year 2008 some thirty thousand warheads will have been dismantled, leaving about five thousand on each side. The two presidents seem to have agreed to bring that down to in the range of seventeen hundred to twenty-two hundred each.”
“We’re negotiating a formal agreement, a treaty that Congress insists on,” the Secretary reminded him. “We’re almost there.”
“Yes, I know. The dismantling process produces two kinds of weapons-grade fissionable material from the core: highly enriched uranium, HEU, and plutonium. We are dismantling about eighteen hundred warheads a year at our Pantex plant in Amarillo. We have in temporary storage about four hundred metric tonnes of HEU plus about fifty metric tonnes of plutonium. On the Russian side they have about five hundred tonnes of HEU and some fifty to one hundred metric tonnes of plutonium. They have few warhead dismantling sites.”
The Secretary’s cell phone rang. She answered, saying, “I’ll call you back,” then returned her attention to Ross. “Sorry, Rob. Keep going.”
“So that’s just from weapons alone. No factoring on of the spent waste loaded with plutonium coming out of civilian nuclear reactors in Russia. Their nuclear reactors just keep on churning out tonnes of plutonium-filled waste. And the rotting nuclear submarines are all over the Kola Peninsula. Can you believe one hundred of them with their nuclear reactors still in place? And eighty on the Pacific coast. The Russians are in terrible shape, nuclear waste–wise. They don’t have the money. Their economy is such a shambles they can’t build a permanent disposal site.”
“Like our Yucca Mountain repository?” the Secretary asked.
“But Yucca isn’t a permanent disposal site.” Ross was emphatic. “A disposal site is a location where the most dangerous proliferation material, plutonium, the stuff from warheads, can be placed permanently and sealed in with no hope of retrieval. Instead the DOE’s statement of recommendation to the President about Yucca ... I’m reading this ... says,‘A repository at Yucca Mountain would centralize the disposal of high-level radioactive waste, while maintaining the option to retrieve it.’
“And, this, where the statement talks about keeping Yucca repository open for one hundred to three hundred years: ‘Keeping the repository open means that the underground storage areas can be directly inspected and the waste packages readily retrieved, were that necessary.’
“From the same statement: ‘By permanently disposing of surplus nuclear weapons material the U.S. encourages other nations to do the same.’” Rob paused. “That’s wrong. Yucca is for storage so the surplus nuclear weapons can be retrieved. It is stated policy that it’s not for ‘permanently disposing’ at all!”
The Secretary understood the point. “So what you’re saying is that it’s U.S. policy to get the Russians to permanently dispose of their weapons-grade plutonium but we’re not prepared to do that ourselves — not at Yucca, anyway.”
“Exactly. I agree with the DOE statement that there’s a worldwide consensus that deep geologic disposal is the best option for disposing of high-level nuclear waste. If we want to get the Russians to take apart their nuclear warheads, get them down to between seventeen hundred and twenty-two hundred and the same on our side, then we should get them to agree to permanently dispose of the weapons-grade plutonium extracted from their warheads.”
“And we have to do the same, permanently dispose,” the Secretary added.
“Absolutely. But Yucca won’t do that for America.”
“What will?”
“A depository, a place where we can permanently dispose of our weapons-grade surplus plutonium and high-level waste on an irretrievable basis, a place where the Russians can join us, do the same thing, dispose of their nuclear waste. We need an international site. That way we can partner with them in getting rid of their waste.”
“And get some sort of control, some sort of accounting of what they’re doing with our money,” Crisp suggested.
“That’s the point.” Ross nodded. “Put it this way. The disposal site has to be international, in a neutral, non–world power country, and accessible by land, sea, and air.”
“A neutral country? Why?” Crisp asked.
“You don’t think for a minute that the Russians would even consider sending their warhead surplus plutonium or uranium or whatever for safe disposal at Yucca or anywhere else in America?”
“Of course they wouldn’t,” Crisp agreed.
CHAPTER 7
Crisp came back to a point Ross had raised. “There’s something you said much earlier about the Russians having a big, temporarily stored nuclear mess on their hands...”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure you didn’t miss this but the Russian Parliament, the lower house, the Duma, has passed legislation that will allow the importation of spent nuclear fuel for storage and reprocessing.”
“I didn’t miss it. That’s incredible. Like throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out.”
“The Duma passed the legislation with a two to one majority,” Crisp said. “Here they are, apparently incapable of handling the nuclear waste they themselves have produced...”
“And are continuing to churn out...”
“Precisely. And here we are, throwing money at them to help them clean up their house when they’re ready to open their doors to more nuclear garbage. Doesn’t make sense except for the Russian guesstimate, which is that the intake of about one thousand tonnes a year of waste fuel would produce, generate, about $30.5 billion over ten years...”
“Which they could use to clean up their existing mess,” Ross suggested. “Got it. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
“Perhaps the United States could withhold its consent,” the Secretary ventured. “It has consent rights for much of the world’s nuclear waste because it provides the nuclear fuel, the uranium bundles, for most plants around the world.”
“But I can’t see us trying that ploy,” Rob responded. “I mean the Russians are desperate for dollars, for any good outside currency they can lay their hands on. It would be hard for the U.S. to justify interfering. On the other hand, who would their customers be?”
“They say the Ukraine, Taiwan, Japan, China, Iran, and eastern Europe. Frankly, I think the densely populated west European countries are or could be customers.”
“In the meantime the Russians’ prostituting their nuclearstorage selves for money is pathetic,” Ross said.
The Secretary of State was mightily impressed as she listened to the brilliant, handsome young Ross. Clean-cut and articulate, he reminded her of Wayne Gretzky. The Secretary was a hockey fan, loved the fast action, the hard hits, even