U. S. and Norwegian experts cooperating to make Norway free of highly enriched uranium
WASHINGTON – The United States and Norway announced a joint effort to assess a technical solution for downblending Norway’s remaining highly enriched uranium (HEU) with the mutual goal of making the Nordic nation HEU-free.
The Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and State Secretary of Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to continue building on the work done to date, with the eventual goal of eliminating the last remaining HEU in Norway, which poses a challenge due to the thorium content of the materials.
“Norway has been a strong partner in this effort from the start,” said Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, NNSA Administrator and Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the U.S. Department of Energy. “In 2019 we began discussions with our Norwegian counterparts about a promising approach which might help them to become HEU-free.”
As a global advocate for HEU minimization, Norway has long played an important role convening international symposia and meetings to enable the exchange of ideas and best practices relating to the elimination of HEU. During the 2019 meeting in Oslo, which was focused on HEU-thorium mixtures, NNSA and its Norwegian partners began discussing a potential method to address Norway’s inventories of these materials. Since then, U.S. and Norwegian technical experts have worked together to mature this concept, which would involve downblending the HEU in Norway, ensuring that terrorists or other bad actors would never be able to use this material for a nuclear device.
“With continued cooperation, Norway, and other countries with HEU, can join those which are HEU-free so that this material can never be misused,” said State Secretary Audun Halvorsen.
A U.S.-Norwegian team is now studying Norway’s existing infrastructure; inventory data; and the safety, security, and safeguards implications of the proposed technical solution, among other topics.
In a joint statement, both countries recognized that challenges remain ahead, some of which remain unknown at this time, but highlighted mutual confidence in our two countries’ ability to meet and overcome them, ultimately making Norway HEU-free and advancing the common goal of global nuclear security.
