Algeria: Nuclear Reactor Update
The Risk Report
Volume 1 Number 5 (June 1995) Page 12
Algeria's 15-megawatt nuclear reactor, which China built secretly in the 1980s but finally put under international inspection in 1992, can make less A-bomb material than commonly thought, U.S. government analysts say.
At a power of 15 megawatts, a typical heavy water research reactor produces about 4-5 kilograms of plutonium per year in its natural uranium fuel, enough for roughly two bombs every three years. This is the production level estimated in the May issue of the Risk Report. But according to U.S. analysts, the Algerian reactor is fueled by 3-percent enriched uranium rather than natural uranium. This means that only one-fourth as much plutonium is formed in the reactor's fuel, yielding about one kilogram per year. The reactor could also produce plutonium by irradiating uranium blanks, but only at a rate of about one kilogram per year because of space limitations. Thus, total plutonium production could only be two kilograms per year, half as much as previously estimated.