South Korea is to play a key role in a four-way project with Belgium, France and the U.S. for developing an alternative to highly enriched uranium used in research reactors.

In a joint statement announced Tuesday, the four countries said they would launch a project for an alternative to highly enriched uranium used in high performance research reactors.

“In preventing nuclear terrorism, preventing terrorist groups from obtaining nuclear materials is of utmost importance,” Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik said. He added that while many research reactors have been converted to use materials other than HEU, high performance research reactors remain the largest civilian consumer of HEU. There are more than 20 high performance research reactors around the world where more than 600 kilograms of HEU is in use.

“The centrifugal atomization technology developed by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute forms the core of this project. If the project goes well, it will allow high performance research reactors to achieve similar efficiency without using HEU. It will be a meaningful project for reducing civilian use of HEU.”

Under the agreement, the U.S. will provide the low enriched uranium. Korea will convert the substance into atomized uranium molybdenum powder, which is the starting substance for producing high-density uranium molybdenum fuel. High-density uranium molybdenum fuel is the alternative to HEU proposed by the participants of the project.

The U.S. plans to provide 110 kilograms of LEU by the end of the year. The amount provided will result in about 100 kilograms of atomized uranium molybdenum powder, the production of which is scheduled for completion during next year.

The French fabricator AREVA-CERCA will then use the uranium molybdenum powder produced by Korea to produce high-density uranium molybdenum fuel.

The fuel will then be loaded into high performance research reactors in Belgium and France for testing.

Once the new material’s efficiency and safety has been proven, the results of the project will be made available to other countries as part of the efforts for “promoting the universal use of LEU-based uranium molybdenum fuel.”

Regarding the time line for the project, officials announcing the joint statement said that tangible results would be available in the near future, saying that related research has been underway for some time.

“We have been working on this for several years. We are now gathering all the results, and Korea has fully demonstrated its capacity to produce it on regular basis,” French Atomic Energy Commission chairman Bernard Bigot said.

“In the next five years, we will be able to secure and demonstrate the capacity of this fuel.”

In response to a question over whether the results of the Nuclear Security Summit announced so far were small changes, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said the decisions have significant implications.

“They are not small changes, 50 to 100 kilograms of HEU are being moved and secured so that terrorists and others who should not have access to the material will not have access,” Chu said. “Once you eliminate HEU, you eliminate the possibility of people who should not have access having the material. We are going forward quite quickly.”

On Monday, the U.S., Belgium, France and the Netherlands announced that they would collaborate in developing a non-HEU-based production process for medical radioisotopes to a level that a stable supply of such materials is established by 2015.

Medical isotopes refer to radioactive materials used for medical purposes such as imaging organs and tumors, and HEU is their material of origin.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)