The Department of Energy has completed the purchase of 32 tons of heavy water from Iran for approximately $8.6 million, alongside a renewed congressional push to block similar future deals.
The purchase is part of the United States’ effort to help Iran meet its commitments under the newly implemented multilateral nuclear deal. Heavy water, used in some nuclear reactors that produce plutonium, is critical for nuclear weapons development.
A Department of Energy (DOE) official confirmed Tuesday that the DOE Isotope Program has made a payment for the heavy water and expects to import it to the U.S. in the coming weeks, where it will be stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The heavy water will be sold to commercial buyers; some of it will be used at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the DOE lab.
The lab was unable to previously obtain heavy water for research purposes; it initially acquired several tons of the material from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, but the quantity was not enough to meet Oak Ridge’s needs.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason previously said the Iranian heavy water will be introduced at the SNS in 2017 and will boost production of neutrons by 10 to 20 percent, thereby enhancing the facility’s ability to perform new experiments with materials and allow some to be more quickly completed.
The Iranian heavy water purchase became a contentious roadblock to passage of the Senate fiscal 2017 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill in April, when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced an amendment prohibiting Iranian heavy water purchases. The amendment was eventually stripped from the final bill, which passed May 12 and offers $31 billion for the DOE.
The full House on Wednesday will begin considering the No 2H2O from Iran Act, a bill introduced in April by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) that would prohibit the use of funding to any federal agency for any fiscal year for the purchase of Iranian heavy water or issuing a license for such a purchase.
