Origin of the Agreement

Photo credit: Peter Goldberg/Lewis & Clark College
 

Thomas L. Neff (1943–2024) — Physicist, innovator, and catalyst of the “Megatons to Megawatts” program

Thomas L. Neff was a physicist at MIT’s Center for International Studies whose vision reshaped nuclear history. In 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed, he proposed an unprecedented plan: convert highly enriched uranium (HEU) from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into fuel for American power plants.

Over the next two decades, this idea became the Megatons to Megawatts program. By 2013, it had transformed 20,000 Russian warheads into electricity — supplying nearly 10% of U.S. power for twenty years, and representing the largest single act of nuclear disarmament in history.

The Original Idea: A Grand Uranium Bargain

On October 24, 1991, Neff published a New York Times Op-Ed titled “A Grand Uranium Bargain.” This short article planted the seed for a $17 billion program, eliminating one-third of the world’s bomb-grade uranium.

Full text of this Op-Ed is available here.

Learn more about Thomas L. Neff