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Selected chapters from:

Fissile Materials in a Glass, Darkly:

Technical and Policy Aspects of the Disposition of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium

by: Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. and Annie Makhijani

January 1995
Second Edition

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Preface

Disposing of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) has become a vexing problem at the end of the Cold War as nuclear weapons are dismantled in large numbers and more and more of these materials become surplus to military requirements even in official terms. Further, non-nuclear weapons states are demanding more insistently that nuclear weapons states take more seriously the spirit of their commitment, under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, (NPT) to create and implement a timetable for nuclear disarmament. It is therefore possible that all or almost all of these materials, once thought essential for national security by the nuclear weapons states, will become surplus. The possibility that they will be re-used in nuclear weapons by the nuclear weapons states themselves or sold illegally for such use by others will continue to pose grave dangers to global security. Effective reduction of nuclear weapons, to say nothing of effective disarmament, will require that these materials be put into a form that cannot be easily reused in nuclear weapons.

This study addresses the disposition of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) as it relates to putting these weapons-usable materials into non-weapons-usable forms in the short- and medium-term. This is a multi-faceted subject; we consider the following aspects of it:

Many important problems associated with plutonium and HEU management are outside the scope of this report, which is in the nature of a monograph. In particular, we do not consider the issues of storage, materials accounting, and safeguards. Plutonium and HEU must be carefully accounted for and safeguarded to prevent their re-use in nuclear weapons or their sale on the black market. There is general agreement on the importance of such safeguards. There is also accord on the importance of safe storage in conformity with protection of health of workers and nearby communities. However, whether this general level of consensus can be translated into specific agreements on the details and into actual practice remains and open question.

For reasons explained in the introduction to this report, we take as a premise that plutonium is an economic, security, and environmental liability. This is surely not a universally accepted idea. The large financial investments that many countries have made in using plutonium as an energy source have created bureaucratic and institutional resistance to new economic and security realities. This inertia has been largely overcome in the United States due to farsighted policies that were initiated in 1976, at the end of the Ford administration, institutionalized by the Carter administration, and carried forward to the present. U.S. policy has therefore long recognized the fact that all plutonium, whether of civilian or military origin, can be used to make nuclear weapons. The use of reactor grade plutonium in a nuclear weapon was successfully demonstrated in a 1962 test conducted by the United States at the Nevada Test Site, and is a well established fact.

Since the United States has already given up civilian use of plutonium for non-proliferation as well as economic reasons, we believe that it is in an excellent position to exercise global leadership on this crucial issue. Its ability to translate that position into effective action will depend on whether the disposition options that it chooses for its own surplus plutonium take into account the international repercussions of its internal decisions.

As regards highly enriched uranium, most studies assume that it will be mixed with depleted uranium, slightly enriched uranium, or natural uranium in order to convert it into the 3 to 5 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel suitable for use in light water reactors, the most common power reactor design in use today. This report does not examine the economics of this option relative to treating HEU as a waste. Rather, we have pointed out the necessity for examining further options for HEU because, for reasons explained in this report, the option of blending down may not be implemented with the speed necessary to meet growing security concerns.

Like other researchers, we have found that there is no good solution to the disposition of weapons-usable fissile materials; we must select from a menu of poor choices. There are no currently feasible solutions that will get rid of these materials for good. Those that have been proposed as possible options for the future present their own problems of potentially increasing proliferation threats, creating new environmental problems and/or aggravating old ones, and huge costs. Even the exploration of these methods is tied up with unresolved and contentious political questions regarding the future of nuclear arsenals and of nuclear power.

Fissile materials are, in general, necessary for building nuclear explosives. They are defined as materials whose nuclei release energy when split and which can be split with both slow and fast neutrons. Fissile materials in sufficient quantities, called critical masses, can sustain chain reactions and can therefore be used to fuel nuclear reactors. Certain fissile materials, such as natural uranium and low enriched uranium, cannot be used to make nuclear weapons since they cannot be assembled into supercritical masses in which the chain reaction grows so rapidly that there is a large and very sudden energy release -- that is, there is an explosion. Practically speaking, there are only three weapons-usable fissile materials, plutonium, highly enriched uranium (made from natural uranium), and uranium-233, which does not occur in nature, whose man-made stocks are very small relative to plutonium and HEU, and which has not been used in nuclear weapons, so far as public data indicate. We will not consider uranium-233 in this report.

The title of our report draws upon a passage in the Bible that recognizes the uncertainties that are inherent in the human condition whenever we try to peer into the future. Philosophers have generally assigned certitudes to the province of God. The biblical text (from the first Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians) reads:

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall I know even as also I am known.

The creation of vast quantities of fissile materials has accentuated all the incertitudes that we are heir to. The present global predicament with respect to weapons-usable fissile materials, whose half-lives are far greater than the longevity of human institutions, has arisen in large measure because governments and their nuclear establishments did not even consider the question of what future generations might do with these materials, if society did not want them. A failure now to recognize the threat to ourselves and to future generations and to deal with it urgently would compound tragically that historic mistake. We must attempt to minimize the risks for our children, even as we recognize the weaknesses of our solutions.

For the purposes of illustrating some of the calculations in this paper, we have taken a notional amount of plutonium (50 metric tons) to illustrate the time frames that would be involved in plutonium vitrification in the U.S. We have not attempted to deal with the problems of exactly how much plutonium may be declared a surplus, because, as noted above, this will depend on future arms reduction agreements and on the course and quantity of civilian reprocessing. The amount chosen here, 50 metric tons, is almost half of the U.S. military inventory, not including plutonium residues and plutonium in un-reprocessed spent fuel.

The portion of this report related to vitrification of plutonium is based partly on a 1992 draft report which IEER prepared for the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress (Contract Number I3-4080.0) as a background paper for use in preparation of OTA's own 1993 report, Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Materials (see reference list). However, the present report is IEER's alone, and OTA has no responsibility for its publication or its contents.

Annie Makhijani, co-author of this work and Project Scientist at IEER, researched and wrote most of the chapter on HEU disposition. She also researched many aspects of plutonium chemistry relevant to this report.

I would like to thank John Plodinec of the Westinghouse Savannah River Company for information regarding vitrification at the Savannah River Site and Ray Richards of Glasstech for information on stirred glass melters. Professor Marvin Miller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology kindly provided a copy of a recently completed Master of Science thesis by Kory William Budlong Sylvester that contains analyses of important experimental work on and computer modeling of vitrification. Norton Haberman of the DOE and Norman Brandon of Nuclear Fuel Services provided invaluable information on blending down HEU. Charles Forsberg of Oak Ridge National Laboratory provided much information, including data on a new method of vitrifying plutonium that could be especially applicable to plutonium residues.

The National Academy of Sciences study on plutonium, published in 1994 has been invaluable in preparing this work, as the many footnotes referring to it will attest. In this work we have tried to narrow the options further, and to integrate disposition of military plutonium, civilian plutonium, plutonium residues, and HEU into a single overall policy.

A number of people provided very valuable review comments that have helped make this a better report. They are: Norman Brandon, Brian Costner of Energy Research Foundation, Charles Forsberg, Beverly Gattis of Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping, Ralph Hutchison of Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Pete Johnson of the Office of Technology Assessment, J.M. McKibben of the Westinghouse Savannah River Company, Marvin Miller, John Plodinec, IEER's Outreach Coordinator Noah Sachs, and Kathleen Tucker of the Health and Energy Institute. Of course, only the authors of this report are responsible for any errors and omissions in it, and for its contents generally.

The first edition of this report was discussed at IEER's National Symposium on fissile materials disposition held on November 17 and 18, 1994 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. The basic technical content of this edition, which is being issued as a book, is the same as that of the first edition, but we have drawn on the suggestions made during the symposium to improve the report and include some new material. Further, as a result of the discussion during the symposium of vulnerability of various forms of glass to theft, we have emphasized one option for the vitrification of plutonium as more desirable than others in this edition. We have added a discussion of how the vitrification program might be carried out rapidly and yet with effective public participation. The background material for this new discussion on contracting and public participation (see Chapter 8) was drafted by Brian Costner. Finally, we have made some editorial changes as a result of further review and the discussion of the work during the symposium. Janna Rolland prepared a summary of the symposium proceedings which was very helpful to the production of the second edition. Todd Perry provided an editorial review and many useful comments.

This report is part of IEER's outreach project on plutonium which is supported by grants from the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the C.S. Fund, as well as a general support grant from the Public Welfare Foundation.

Arjun Makhijani
Takoma Park, Maryland
January 1995

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