The Megatons to Megawatts Evaluation Project analyzes the 1993-2013 "HEU Deal" between the US and Russia. When complete, the Deal had converted 500 metric tons of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) from Russian nuclear warheads—equivalent to over 20,000 Hiroshima weapons—purchased by the US for use in civilian nuclear fuel, which produced some 10 percent of U.S. electricity over those two decades. The term "Megatons to Megawatts" (M2M) was coined as a descriptive shorthand during the agreement, which well captured the unusual swords to plowshares aspect of the Deal. The Evaluation Project seeks to more fully document and understand this little-known but consequential Deal that helped address unprecedented early post-Cold War nuclear security threats caused by the collapse of the Soviet nuclear empire, which also meaningfully reduced the world's nuclear weapons material on a large scale. How did this unusual deal come about? What were the scientific, political, diplomatic, and economic factors that enabled such cooperation between former rivals to be possible and sustained over 20 years? Moreover, what were the environmental benefits, netted out over that period, from the agreement (e.g., energy without carbon, while eliminating weapons material)?
The icons below organize our ongoing work about the history of M2M, our working annual seminars, interviews we have conducted with individuals involved with the Deal at various stages, analysis of the environmental impacts, and an archival space to post source material or other relevant materials of key participants to augment the historical record, starting with that of the late Thomas L. Neff who proposed the Deal concept in 1991. We will continue to add to this record of work over time, paced by the resources available.
