Nuclear Disarmament
Nuclear Disarmament
CNDSI is dedicating its initial interest to the Megatons to Megawatts - M2M program that when completed in December 2013, had some 500 metric tons of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) – equivalent to some 20,000 Hiroshima weapons -- verified as from Russian nuclear weapons, had been transformed into civil nuclear fuel, producing roughly 10 percent of U.S. electricity for 20 years.
The M2M program contributed significantly to the sharp reduction in nuclear weapons from its peak estimated at nearly 70,000 atomic bombs were available in the 1980s to the current estimated 12,500 . It has been calculated that after 1945 “more than 130,000 nuclear weapons were built.”
Of great interest are not only to the political-diplomatic agreement but to the technical choices that led to the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for nuclear bombs to produce electricity through civilian nuclear power plants which permanently eliminated a significant portion of that weapons material.
Projects
Prepared by an Informal Exploratory Working Group an invitation only working seminar will be held on Monday, June 16, 2025 at The Forum to articulate the methodology, conditions and timing of a comprehensive independent evaluation of the M2M program.
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Prompted by Civiltà dell’Amore and Nuclear for Peace, CNDSI is participating in an international team working on articulating the fundamental claim - internally attributed to Enrico Mainardi - that
“Nuclear re-conversion is the only process used successfully to terminate nuclear weapons
(and to recover value out of them)”
The statement is extremely relevant in terms of the multidisciplinary opportunities and dilemmas that entails. The team works remotely and in person.