Wikipdeia reports that the Megatons to Megawatts program was initiated in 1993 and completed on schedule in December 2013. A total of 500 tonnes of Russian warhead grade HEU (equivalent to 20,008 nuclear warheads) were converted in Russia to nearly 15,000 tonnes tons of LEU (low-enriched uranium) and sold to the U.S. for use as fuel in American nuclear power plants. The program was the largest and most successful nuclear non-proliferation program to date. The first nuclear power plant to receive low-enriched fuel containing uranium under this program was the Cooper Nuclear Station in 1998. During the 20-year Megatons to Megawatts program, as much as 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States was generated by fuel fabricated using LEU from Russian HEU.
During this period, on a comparatively modest basis, the U.S. government has also been converting some of its excess nuclear warhead HEU into power plant fuel. Efforts have also been undertaken to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of converting warhead plutonium into fuel to augment nuclear fuel for US power plants. Nuclear industry sources forecasted high demand trends that would require finding other uranium supply sources after the completion of the Megatons to Megawatts agreement.
In 2011, TENEX and USEC signed a long-term contract (Transitional Supply Agreement – TSA) for the provision of enrichment services to the United States that could see annual deliveries after 2015 reaching a level of around half the annual supply volume under the HEU Deal. But, no plans have been announced for new initiatives similar to the Megatons to Megawatts program.
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