Plutonium End Game

Press Release

Table of Contents

Preface

Summary and Recommendations

Chapter One: Nature of the problem of commercial plutonium

Chapter Two: A Brief History of Commercial Plutonium

Chapter Three: Assessment of the current situation

Chapter Four: Disposition of US-Russian Surplus Military Plutonium

Chapter Five: Alternative Disposition Options

References

The high hopes of the 1950s that plutonium would provide a "magical" energy source - one that might even be "too cheap to meter" - have run aground on the shoals of technical problems in the development of breeder reactors, high costs of reprocessing (that is, separation of plutonium from irradiated reactor fuel) and plutonium fuel fabrication, non-proliferation concerns, serious and continuing pollution for plutonium separation plants, and low uranium prices. At the same time, alternative energy sources, notably wind energy, have come of age, with far less public support than they deserve.

Yet, those who fervently hope and believe in the long-term future of plutonium as an energy source have enough muscle in the political and economic arenas to keep the plutonium flame alive. Indeed, they have been able to vastly increase the amount of plutonium being separated and used as a fuel. This mixed plutonium dioxide-depleted uranium dioxide (called mixed oxide or MOX) fuel is being used in light water reactors - the most common kind of commercial reactor - the vast majority of which were not designed for plutonium fuels. Enormous subsidies from electricity ratepayers and taxpayers to the reprocessing and MOX fuel industries have been involved and are continuing.

Even with all these efforts, surplus commercial plutonium stocks have been rising. High costs, unsuitability of several reactor designs for MOX fuel, and environmental and security concerns associated with reprocessing and MOX fuel production has limited the number of countries and reactors in which MOX fuel is being used. Britain faces the most acute crisis with about one-third of the entire world's separated commercial plutonium stock, and at best one nuclear power reactor in which it may be used. In Russia, the stock of commercial plutonium stands at about 30 metric tons - enough to make thousands of nuclear bombs - raising significant security concerns.

On the military side, as the Soviet Union collapsed, large numbers of nuclear warheads not only became superfluous - they turned into short-term security threats because they may have wound up on black markets. The same kind of security concern also arose in relation to separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In the ensuing years both the United States and Russia declared significant quantities of plutonium (about fifty tons each) and highly enriched uranium surplus to their security needs.

The United States and Russia have been negotiating ways in which to put their surplus military plutonium into non-weapons usable form. The primary method they have chosen is to use it as MOX fuel in power reactors. In Russia, MOX fuel would also be used in at least one breeder reactor. The US-Russian agreement, formalized on 1 September 2000, would allow Russia to reprocess MOX spent fuel and thereby to re-extract the substantial amount of residual plutonium in it. The agreement has been used by Russian nuclear establishment as a key component for its plan for the re-establishment of the commercial nuclear industry, and specifically its breeder reactor component, which was severely affected by the twin blows of the Chernobyl accident and the economic crisis in Russia.

The objective of this report is to analyze the problem of rising commercial plutonium stocks in the context of the failed hopes for a plutonium based energy future and of the end of the Cold War. I will also discuss surplus military plutonium to the extent necessary to integrate recommendations regarding its management with that of commercial plutonium. IEER has published many articles and one book on the disposition of surplus military weapons usable fissile materials, and hence it is not necessary to discuss these at length here.

In this report, I will take at face value the declaration of governments regarding the extent to which they consider a part of their military plutonium stocks to be in excess of their needs. The questioning of any "need" for military plutonium is, of course, a legitimate area of debate, in the context of nuclear disarmament. Such a discussion is beyond the scope of this report. The reader desiring additional information on the disposition of surplus military plutonium should consult IEER's web site at www.ieer.org/latest/pu-disp.html. IEER's analysis of issues related to nuclear disarmament, and to the management of nuclear materials in that context, can also be found throughout the IEER web site.

The issue of alternative energy sources for the long term has also been covered in other IEER publications. For instance, a detailed report published by IEER has shown that wind energy is already far more economical than plutonium as an energy source. Hence the recommendations for the immobilization of commercial plutonium should be viewed not only in the context of the analysis provided here, but also in the context of the overall situation in regard to the development of alternative technologies and the evolution of proliferation risks in the post-Cold-War period.

We use metric units in this report, unless otherwise noted. We have used the conversion rate of 1 dollar = 1 euro for converting present-day European costs into US dollars and vice versa. The euro has been seventeen percent higher than this figure in the past and is over ten percent lower at the time of this writing (early September 2000). These differences are small enough in the context of plutonium costs and their uncertainties that they do not significantly affect the calculations or conclusions of this report. All dollars are expressed in 1999 dollars, unless otherwise specified. Many calculations have been done in terms of 1996 dollars and 1996 dollars have been converted to 1999 dollars by using a factor of 1.05. Financial figures are rounded to one or two significant digits, as implied by the presentation of the amount.

I would like to thank Mycle Schneider and Xavier Coeytaux of Wise-Paris, Satoshi Fujino (CNIC, Tokyo), David Lowry, Jean-Luc Thierry of Greenpeace, France, Richard Donderer of the Physikerbuero in Bremen, Heike Prietzel of the Öko Institute in Darmstadt, and Martin Forwood of Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment for providing me with data, other assistance, and/or comments. I would also like to thank IEER's librarian, Lois Chalmers, for her extensive assistance in bibliographic research. Of course, as the author, I alone am responsible for the contents of this reports and any errors that may remain.

This report is a part of IEER's global project on non-proliferation and disarmament, which is funded by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the C.S. Fund, as well as by general support grants from the HKH Foundation, the New Land Foundation, and the Turner Foundation. We thank them all for their generous support of IEER's work.

Arjun Makhijani
Takoma Park, Maryland
December 2000

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