IPFM International Panel on Fissile Materials

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IPFM presents "A Path to Nuclear Disarmament" at the United Nations

posted by Alexander Glaser on Oct 29th, 2009 [15:14h]
under: disarmament, gfmr
last edited on Oct 29th, 2009 [16:08h]

On Wednesday, 28 October, the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), presented Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament at the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee, which is responsible for international peace and security.

Global Fissile Material Report 2009 charts some of the key technical and policy steps for securing verifiable world-wide nuclear disarmament and eliminating the world’s huge stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the key materials for making nuclear weapons.

Nuclear disarmament has returned to the center of international debate following President Barack Obama’s April 2009 speech in Prague, in which he pledged “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” In September 2009, the United Nations Security Council, which includes the five major nuclear weapon states, unanimously agreed “to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.”

Global Fissile Material Report 2009 discusses how nuclear-armed states could declare their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, plutonium and highly enriched uranium, and how these declarations might be verified using the methods and tools being developed for what is now called ‘nuclear archaeology.’

The report includes IPFM’s annual assessment of worldwide stocks, production, and disposition of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and current efforts to eliminate these materials. There are nine nuclear-armed states and over 20,000 nuclear weapons today. The report includes for the first time an estimate of the number and locations of nuclear weapons sites worldwide, listed by country.

The IPFM estimates that the current global stockpile of highly enriched uranium is about 1600 metric tons. There are about 500 tons of separated plutonium, divided almost equally between weapon and civilian stocks, but it is all weapon-usable. The global stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium together are sufficient for over one hundred thousand nuclear weapons. The report lists the location, size and safeguards status of operating, under construction and planned fissile material production facilities around the world.

The report considers options for monitoring nuclear warhead dismantlement and the disposition of the fissile materials they contain as well as other stockpiles of fissile materials; verifiably ending the production of fissile materials for weapons, through a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (a topic treated in detail in Global Fissile Material Report 2008); the potential roles of nuclear fuel-cycle facilities in enabling nuclear breakout in a disarmed world; and the potential contributions of societal or citizen verification to making it impossible to conceal illicit nuclear-weapon-related activities.

Release of Global Fissile Material Report 2008

posted by Alexander Glaser on Oct 11th, 2008 [09:36h]
under: briefings, gfmr, fmct
last edited on Oct 11th, 2008 [10:26h]

On Friday, 10 October, the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) released its 2008 Global Fissile Material Report and a Companion Volume at the United Nations. The report was presented to the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, which is reponsible for international peace and security.

The Global Fissile Material Report provides an annual review of worldwide stocks, production, and disposition of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and assesses global efforts to secure and eliminate these materials. The control of these materials is crucial to nuclear disarmament, to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.

The special focus of the 2008 Global Fissile Material Report is the challenges of achieving a verifiable Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, a long sought after global ban on the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. A treaty banning the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons is an essential requirement for constraining nuclear arms races and, in the longer term, achieving nuclear disarmament. The production of these materials is the most difficult step in making nuclear weapons.

In 1993, the UN General Assembly called for the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. These negotiations have not yet begun. There have been major disputes among states over the scope of a possible treaty and whether it can be verified. In 2006, the Bush Administration proposed a draft treaty that marked a break with previous U.S. policy, by omitting any provisions for international verification.

In the 2008 Global Fissile Material Report, the International Panel on Fissile Materials has proposed key elements for a verifiable treaty. In addition to a ban on all future production of fissile material for weapons, the Report makes a case that the treaty should also address pre-existing stocks of fissile material held by nuclear weapons states. In particular, the proposed treaty would ban the use for weapons of fissile material that was once in weapons and has been declared as excess because of reductions in nuclear arsenals, materials that have been declared for use in naval-propulsion or other military reactors, and all fissile materials that are in the civilian sector at the time a state joins the treaty.

Conference Room 4, before the event. The slides of the briefing are available here.

The Report also provides technical arguments for how a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty could be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report has chapters discussing verification at production facilities, namely uranium enrichment and plutonium separation (reprocessing) facilities; accounting of weapons materials declared excess for military use but still in classified form and highly enriched uranium reserved for naval reactor fuel; inspections at military nuclear sites to ensure they are not concealing covert production facilities; and, the monitoring of shutdown facilities that formerly produced fissile materials for nuclear weapons. The panel concludes, contrary to current US policy, that the treaty could be effectively verified at reasonable cost.

The 2008 Global Fissile Material Report has a Companion Volume: Banning the Production of Fissile Materials for Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty. This volume provides a country-by-country analysis of the concerns of key states to different aspects of a prospective Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. The report covers 11 countries: China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States, i.e., all the weapon states other than North Korea and three key non-weapon states. It proposes specific policy initiatives and compromises that states could make to break the logjam preventing negotiation on a treaty.

Next Stop: Woodrow Wilson School

posted by Alexander Glaser on Oct 22nd, 2007 [14:49h]
under: briefings, gfmr
last edited on Oct 24th, 2007 [09:10h]

This coming Thursday, Frank von Hippel, Harold Feiveson, and Alexander Glaser will present findings from the Global Fissile Material Report 2007 at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Everyone is invited.

WHEN: Thursday, October 25, 12:30-2:00 p.m.
WHERE: Robertson Hall, Bowl 001 (NEW LOCATION), Princeton University

This is a follow-up to our briefing last week at the U.N. The slides of Glaser's presentation, which focused on nuclear weapons and fissile material stockpiles and reductions, are available here.

IPFM to present Global Fissile Material Report 2007 at the United Nations.

posted by Alexander Glaser on Oct 16th, 2007 [11:19h]
under: briefings, gfmr, fmct
last edited on Oct 17th, 2007 [10:00h]

Harold Feiveson, Alexander Glaser and Frank von Hippel from the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) will speak at the United Nations on: "Toward a Global Cleanout of Nuclear Weapon Materials."

This event will be sponsored by the U.N. NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security, with the cooperation of the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs.

WHEN: Friday, October 19, 1:15-2:45 p.m.

WHERE: Conference Room 8, United Nations Headquarters, NYC

The Global Fissile Material Report 2007 appears on the fiftieth aniversary of a remarkable moment of arms-control history. In November 1957, the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1148 (XII) called for an agreement to provide for "[...] the cessation of the production of fissionable materials for weapons purposes and the complete devotion of future production of fissionable materials to non-weapons purposes under effective international control; [...]" -- now better known as a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Here is the full text of the resolution (also as PDF).

IPFM Releases Global Fissile Material Report 2007

posted by Alexander Glaser on Oct 3rd, 2007 [10:50h]
under: GFMR, fissile materials, HEU, plutonium, nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, nuclear weapons
last edited on Oct 22nd, 2007 [10:46h]

On Thursday, 11 October, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, will host the launch of the 2007 Global Fissile Material Report by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), an independent group of scientists and analysts from sixteen countries.

The Global Fissile Material Report provides an annual review of worldwide stocks, production, and disposition of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and assesses global efforts to secure and eliminate these materials. Deep cuts and consolidation in the stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium is critical to nuclear disarmament, halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.

Download the full report: GFMR 2007

Here's the Table of Contents:

Nuclear Weapon and Fissile Material Stockpiles and Production
Disposition of Excess Highly Enriched Uranium
Disposition of Excess Plutonium
Fissile Material Consolidation in the U.S. Nuclear Complex
Progress Toward Nuclear Disarmament
International Safeguards in the Nuclear Weapon States
Managing the Civilian Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Russia’s Nuclear-Energy Complex and its Roles as an International Fuel-Cycle-Services Provider
Detection of Clandestine Fissile Material Production

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