Current Initiatives: Plutonium

The Nuclear Control Institute presses the proliferation and economic case against civilian plutonium, often stepping in where U.S. diplomats choose not to venture. Studies we commissioned by acknowledged experts on the suitability of commercial plutonium for use in bombs,1 on the ability of terrorists to make bombs out of this material,2 and on the inability of international inspectors to detect large losses of plutonium from commercial fuel plants3 are widely cited and have helped fan a debate. Our detailed analysis of the diseconomics of plutonium in Japan has successfully withstood industry's attempts to rebut it,4 and our disclosure of a major discrepancy at a Japanese plutonium fuel plant has resulted in an agreement by Japan to clean out the plant and soon produce 150 pounds of missing plutonium for IAEA inspectors.5 We also intervened successfully to block the licensing of the first attempted export of American spent fuel to France---a transfer that would have established a precedent for U.S. utilities to send their spent fuel to Europe for reprocessing and plutonium extraction.

The problem is that despite mounting evidence that commerce in plutonium could soon make the world a very dangerous place, the plutonium question remains at the bottom of U.S. non-proliferation and national-security priorities. Our plutonium project initiatives are aimed at building public understanding of the risks involved in plutonium commerce and winning popular support in a number of countries for a prompt shutdown of the plutonium industry. We are undertaking the following efforts to eliminate commerce in separated, weapons-usable plutonium:

Exposing Safeguards Weaknesses

Large-scale commerce in plutonium is now starting up on the premise that "safeguards" against diversions and thefts are effective.6 Without the legitimacy conferred by the inspections and audits of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its European equivalent, EURATOM, there could be no legitimate basis for civilian commerce in atom bomb materials.

Hans Blix, IAEA's director general, expressed the need for effective safeguards succinctly to delegates at the NPT Review and Extension Conference last April:

...(T)here is a need for credible assurance that nuclear material and installations are used exclusively for peaceful purposes. In order to provide such assurances, safeguards must be effective. Ineffective safeguards may be worse than none, because they might inspire misplaced confidence--- with serious consequences.

Unfortunately, the IAEA avoids alienating influential plutonium-producing countries and refuses to acknowledge that safeguards on plutonium are far from effective. In fact, safeguards raise the potential for nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. At commercial plants that process plutonium fuel, IAEA inspectors have no way of knowing for sure that plant operators are not exploiting imprecise measurements to remove plutonium. Plant operators have the same problem with plant workers who could be diverting on behalf of outside groups or states. The margin of error is large enough to mask deliberate diversions of weapons quantities of plutonium either by insiders or by the state operator of a plant. Insiders could conceal diverted plutonium in a plant's low-level radioactive trash, which is not policed for plutonium before removal from a plant because plutonium is not supposed to be in the trash in the first place.7 Beyond these risks, the bottom-line danger of the commercial plutonium industry is that peaceful conditions and intentions change while plutonium remains a weapons material forever.

We are pressing ahead with our efforts to expose the myth of "effective" safeguards on civilian plutonium. Building on our studies of the weapons potential of reactor-grade plutonium and the limitations of safeguards on commercial plutonium plants,8 we will prepare additional expert critiques of safeguards and seek to organize or to facilitate a workshop on the subject.

In pursuing our studies and the workshop, we will evaluate key elements of safeguards that determine whether safeguards work: the accuracy of measurements and audits, the ability of inspectors, cameras and seals to detect diversions that the audits miss, the timeliness and effectiveness of enforcement, the value of a state's political assurances to compensate for technical shortcomings of safeguards, and the overall burden on global security posed by commercial use of plutonium.

These issues go well beyond the reforms now being considered by the IAEA in the wake of Iraq and North Korea to strengthen the agency's ability to detect undeclared nuclear facilities. The basic issue we are examining is whether the agency could detect diversions of plutonium from declared facilities that are open to IAEA inspections.

We also will initiate additional studies to provide a better understanding of the suitability of commercial plutonium for making crude or advanced weapons, as well as further evidence of the economic disadvantages of using plutonium as a commercial fuel.

Opposing Hazardous Nuclear Transports

In 1987, our institute issued a ground-breaking study disclosing that air shipments of extremely toxic plutonium were about to begin from Europe to Japan via Alaska even though industry had failed to develop a shipping cask capable of withstanding a high- velocity crash. The result: enactment of a U.S. law barring such shipments, a decision by German state licensing authorities to block air shipments of plutonium fuel to Britain, and initiation of an exercise by the IAEA to establish stricter international standards for shipping plutonium by air.9

Unfortunately, Britain and France continue to fly plutonium despite a warning by the IAEA that "a release of radioactive substances cannot be excluded in the case of a severe aircraft crash involving current package designs."10 In addition, the International Civil Aviation Organization and other professional organizations object that the new IAEA air-shipment package standards will not be strict enough.11

We also are drawing international attention to sea shipments of plutonium and nuclear wastes that are proceeding from Europe to Japan since plutonium air shipments were outlawed. Jointly with Greenpeace International and Japan's Citizens Nuclear Information Center, we have sponsored independent technical studies raising unresolved safety questions about the ability of the shipping casks to withstand the effects of collision, fire, and immersion associated with severe accidents in port or at sea.12 The result: dozens of en-route nations have protested the shipments directly with the countries involved and at international conferences. Members of Congress from the Pacific and Caribbean also have cited our findings in pressing the U.S. government to oppose unsafe shipments.13

We continue to evaluate and draw attention to the accident and security risks posed by sea and air transports. Additional sea shipments of plutonium to Japan have been delayed for a few years because of the intense international attention we helped to direct at the first shipment that arrived in 1993.14 But the first sea shipment of highly radioactive reprocessing waste arrived in Japan from France earlier this year. These shipments, more voluminous and intensely radioactive than plutonium shipments, are projected to increase sharply in the next few years, raising concerns about major environmental damage and risks to population centers in case of an accident or hostile act.

In cooperation with other non-governmental organizations and with the governments of en-route countries, we seek to put teeth in safety and environmental codes under review by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the IAEA. In support of this effort, we commissioned a paper by Prof. Jon Van Dyke of the University of Hawaii Law School, a leading expert on international maritime law, that explores use of the "precautionary principle" established in the Rio Declaration to protect the rights of countries along the routes of hazardous transports.15

We are keeping up the pressure against air shipments of plutonium until a safe standard is approved. Air transports are preferred by the plutonium industry because they are quicker, cheaper, more secure and tend to reduce public awareness and controversy. However, a speck of plutonium lodged in the lung or bone can cause cancer in humans, and dispersal of a plutonium cargo after a severe crash could have catastrophic environmental and health consequences.

For the first time, the IAEA is preparing a stricter packaging standard for air shipments than for land and sea shipments of radioactive materials. But the draft IAEA standard still falls far short of U.S. legal requirements and of international impact standards now used to protect flight recorders in commercial airliners. In addition, the new IAEA packaging standard has a loophole exempting plutonium when it is shipped as a mixture of plutonium and uranium---so called mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. We will continue to interact with U.S. and IAEA officials in seeking to develop a new international code as strict as U.S. domestic standards.16

Opposing Plutonium Licensing

We are also preparting to participate in foreign and domestic nuclear licensing proceedings that have a direct bearing on whether plutonium is accepted for use as a commercial fuel.

In Japan, there will be a number of utilities applying for licenses to operate their reactors with plutonium (MOX) fuel for the first time. In cooperation with Japanese non-governmental organizations and supportive prefectural officials, we will prepare studies and testimony that address key safety and environmental as well as non-proliferation and security questions. In Britain, we will play a similar role in the licensing of the first commercial MOX fuel fabrication plant.

In the U.S., we will work to ensure any attempts to fabricate or introduce MOX fuel into the commercial power program meets the requirements of all relevant laws. We also will be making the non-proliferation case for proceeding without further delay to develop a geological repository for spent fuel in order to avoid reprocessing and extraction of plutonium. It is important both to develop a safe repository and to sustain the U.S. policy against domestic reprocessing of spent fuel in order to set the right example for the rest of the world. Industry pressure to reprocess U.S. spent fuel either at home or abroad will grow if a spent-fuel repository is not successfully developed. Thus, should the present candidate site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada prove unfit, it is essential that the utilities' waste fund be applied to developing another site and not misused by Congress to subsidize reprocessing or for unrelated purposes.

End Notes

2. J. Carson Mark et al., "Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?," Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, The Report and Papers of the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, Ed. Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, 1987, pp. 55-65; Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences, Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium, 1994, p. 55, footnotes 32 & 33. Back to document

3. Marvin Miller, "Are IAEA Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-Handling Facilities Effective?," Nuclear Control Institute, August 1990. Back to document

4. Paul Leventhal and Steven Dolley, "A Japanese Strategic Uranium Reserve: A Safe and Economic Alternative to Plutonium," Science and Global Security, Vol. 5 No. 1, 1994, pp. 1-31; British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., "Should Japan Reprocess or Build a Strategic U Reserve?," Nuclear Engineering International, April 1994, pp. 28-29; Steven Dolley, "Japanese Strategic Uranium Reserve: A Response to BNFL," Nuclear Engineering International, September 1994, pp. 50-51. Back to document

5. "'Astounding' Discrepancy of 70 Kilograms of Plutonium Warrants Shutdown of Troubled Nuclear Fuel Plant in Japan," Nuclear Control Institute, May 9, 1994; Mark Hibbs, "IAEA Gives Japan Till 1995 to Account for Holdup Inventory at PFPF Plant," NuclearFuel, October 10, 1994, pp. 12-13. Back to document

6. Both at the 1990 NPT Review Conference and the 1995 conference that permanently extended the Treaty, delegates approved language expressing satisfaction at the "continuing effectiveness of IAEA safeguards in relation to fuel reprocessing and handling and storage of separated plutonium." Working Paper, "Article III - Plutonium," NPT/CONF. 1995/MC.II/WP.9, 21 April 1995, paragraph 1; Report of Main Committee II, NPT/CONF.IV/MCII/1, p. 7, paragraph 17. Back to document

7. Our institute disclosed this situation at a hearing before a German Bundestag investigating committee in 1986. This gap in security was confirmed by government officials and contributed to the ultimate decision by licensing authorities to bar the completion of Germany's only commercial plutonium fuel fabrication plant. Back to document

8. See footnotes 1 and 3. Also see Paul Leventhal, "IAEA Safeguards Shortcomings---A Critique," September 12, 1994. Back to document

9. Paul Leventhal, Milton Hoenig, and Alan Kuperman, "Special Report: Air Transport of Plutonium Obtained by the Japanese from Nuclear Fuel Controlled by the United States," Nuclear Control Institute, March 3, 1987; Amendment No. 1240 (Murkowski Amendment) to S. 9, Omnibus Veterans' Benefits and Services Act of 1987, Congressional Record, December 3, 1987, p. S17177. Back to document

10. "The Air Transport of Radioactive Materials in Large Quantities or With High Activity," International Atomic Energy Agency TecDoc 702, Standing Advisory Group on Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, 1993. Back to document

11. International Civil Aviation Organization, Dangerous Goods Panel, Meeting of the Working Group of the Whole, Report of the Ottawa Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, 24-28 April, 1995. The Panel noted that aircraft flight-recorder specifications require that such recorders be able to survive a crash impact more than twice as powerful as that specified in the new IAEA standard for radioactive material containers. Back to document

12. ECO Engineering, Inc., "A Review of the Proposed Marine Transportation of Reprocessed Plutonium from Europe to Japan," March 30, 1992; Edwin S. Lyman, Ph.D, "Safety Issues in the Sea Transport of Vitrified High-Level Radioactive Waste to Japan," Nuclear Control Institute/Greenpeace International/Citizens Nuclear Information Center, December 1994. Back to document

13. Letter from Reps. Neil Abercrombie, Robert Underwood, Patsy Mink, Carlos Romero-Barcelo, Victor Frazer, and Eni Faleomavaega to President Bill Clinton, January 10, 1995. Back to document

14. "Asia-Pacific Forum on Sea Shipments of Japanese Plutonium: Issues and Concerns," October 4-6, 1992, sponsored and published by Nuclear Control Institute and Citizens' Nuclear Information Center. The conference served as an outlet for international concerns. See David E. Sanger. "Japan's Plan to Ship Plutonium Had Big and Little Lands Roaring," New York Times, October 5, 1992, p 1., and "Japan's Fuel Shipment is Worrying Asians," New York Times, November 9, 1992, p. 3. Back to document

15. Professor Jon M. Van Dyke, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa, "Applying the Precautionary Principle to Ocean Shipments of Radioactive Material," Nuclear Control Institute, September 1995.Back to document

16. Sharon Tanzer, "Status Report on Plutonium Air Shipments," Nuclear Control Institute, August 21, 1995; Sharon Tanzer, "Updated Status Report on Plutonium Air Shipments," Nuclear Control Institute, September 20, 1995; Edwin S. Lyman, Ph.D, "Behavior of Mixed-Oxide Fuel Under Transport Accident Conditions," Nuclear Control Institute, September 21, 1995. Back to document

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