ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) A 20-year program to convert highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for U.S. power plants ended Thursday, with the final shipment loaded onto a vessel in St. Petersburg's port.
The U.S. Energy Department described the program, commonly known as Megatons to Megawatts, as one of the most successful nuclear nonproliferation partnerships ever undertaken.
The agreement, signed in 1993 shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and always scheduled to end in 2013, gave Russia the financial incentive to dismantle thousands of nuclear weapons. The initial aim was to help keep the vast stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium out of the hands of terrorists and to make sure Russia's nuclear workers got paid at a time when the country was nearly bankrupt.
Under the program, 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, the equivalent of about 20,000 nuclear weapons, was converted into fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors. During the past 15 years, the fuel has generated 10 percent of U.S. electricity, or nearly half of all commercial nuclear energy.
"For two decades, one in 10 light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads," U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement.
