Megatons to Megawatts Program

Megatons to Megawatts is the name of a disarmament project. Between 1993 and 2013, highly enriched uranium was converted from about 20,000 Russian nuclear warheads in the U.S. nuclear power plants in power.

Under the agreement, a total of 500 tons of highly enriched uranium were (so-called HEU) from nuclear weapons mixed with low-enriched uranium shipped to the United States and there used to generate energy.

According to former U.S. Ambassador Steven Pifer won the U.S. " [ ... ] about ten percent of the electricity from these Soviet nuclear weapons. " In return, Russia received a total of 17 billion U.S. dollars, which represented about 15 percent of Russia's non-tax state revenue.

This disarmament project was the motto swords into plowshares into practice and at the same time tackle the crucial issue of the protection of weapons-grade material against criminal appropriation.