How Do You Move Highly Enriched Uranium?

ABC's Kirit Radia from Washington: Question:  How do you move highly enriched uranium by plane?  Answer: Very carefully. Take a look at these pictures, showing the reinforced casks used to prevent a catastrophic accident should the plane carrying the spent fuel go down. For the first time ever, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration shipped spent HEU by plane, an effort to speed up the removal of spent fuel from Romania and prevent proliferation of nuclear material, despite the obvious dangers. Moving HEU by plane poses unique challenges, but officials hoped the faster transfer would guard against any theft en route. To guard against a leak or explosion in the case of an accident, the spent fuel was encased in ultra-secure casks and placed in special containers to prevent any radiation leaks.   Yesterday's air shipment removed the last stockpile of spent fuel from Romania and sent it to special secure facilities in Russia where it can be blended down to make a less dangerous substance. In one shipment, 52 pounds of HEU from a Romanian research reactor were transported by armed convoy to the airport and then flown to a special facility in Russia. Another shipment of 66 pounds of spent fuel were sent to another Russian facility. “With these shipments, all HEU has been successfully removed from Romania,” NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said in a statement today. “This represents a major step forward in NNSA’s ongoing efforts to implement President Obama’s unprecedented nuclear security agenda by securing vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide and reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism. Not only do these shipments clean-out the last of the HEU in Romania, but the successful use of an airplane to return spent fuel to Russia opens new opportunities to accelerate our schedule of spent fuel shipments. We very much appreciate the efforts of Romania, Russia, and the International Atomic Energy Agency in this cooperative effort,” he added.