WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- The top U.S. nuclear security official says a third of the world's 130 civilian nuclear research reactors are not secure enough to deter theft of materials.
In an interview with USA Today, Linton Brooks, director of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, warned stolen materials such as enriched uranium, used by many of these reactors, can be used by terrorists to build an atomic bomb.
He said highly enriched uranium, waiting to be used in these reactors, is hard to detect and safe enough to be handled with bare hands.
Brooks and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, D-Ga., told the newspaper unsecured nuclear fuel poses the biggest risk for a nuclear weapon entering the United States.
The locations of the unsecured nuclear reactors have not been disclosed, although the ones in the United States, Russia and Europe reportedly have adequate security.
Nunn, who designed the 1991 U.S. plan to secure nuclear materials, said the world's research reactor security efforts are "at about 3" on a 1-to-10 scale with 10 being safest, the newspaper reported.
