Commonly known as the "HEU deal", the Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement is designed to purchase highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet weapons program, dilute it to low-enriched uranium, and sell it as nuclear fuel on the commercial power plant market.
While the program has eliminated enough HEU for 4,500 weapons since its start in the mid-1990s, it has not been without controversy and challenges. Our speakers are well positioned to provide us with knowledgeable and direct perspectives on this important swords-into-plowshares effort. They are:
William H. Timbers (RealAudio
| Windows
Media) -- Chief Executive Officer of USEC, Inc., which for the past seven
years has been the implementing organization and executive agent for the Highly
Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement
Ernest Moniz (RealAudio
| Windows
Media) -- Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Undersecretary of Energy during the second Clinton Administration.
In that position, he was responsible for policy formulation for and implementation
of the HEU deal.
Thomas Neff (RealAudio
| Windows
Media) -- Senior Researcher at the MIT Center for International Studies
and one of the fathers of the HEU deal. In receiving the 1997 Leo Szilard Award,
he was cited "for proposing and working to keep on track the historic agreement
for the U.S. to purchase uranium from the former Soviet Union weapons stockpile…."
Follow-Up Discussion
(Question and Answer Period