Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials

摘要

The study addresses the challenge of eliminating thousands of nuclear warheads. It traces the U.S. process within the responsible Federal agencies, with particular attention to factors that may affect realization of the national goal of safe and secure stockpile reduction in a manner that protects human health and the environment. The report also reviews related work in Russia, focusing on the ability of the United States to influence a safe, secure, and environmentally sound process there. The report discusses the following major activities involved in the unprecedented enterprise to achieve nuclear stockpile reduction: the process for retiring weapons from active deployment in the military and returning their nuclear warheads to the facilities that manufactured them; and dismantlement of the warheads, and subsequent handling of the parts and materials from them; and the storage, control, and ultimate disposition of key nuclear materials (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) from the warheads.