In the post-Cold-War world, there is a growing awareness of the threat posed by all forms of plutonium. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in its recent study of options for disposing of plutonium from nuclear warheads, drew attention to civilian plutonium produced in nuclear power reactors. "...(T)he risks posed by all forms of plutonium must be addressed," the report found. "...(F)urther steps should be taken to reduce the proliferation risks posed by all of the world's plutonium stocks, military and civilian, separated and unseparated (from spent fuel)...."1

A similar view was expressed in a recent study by the RAND Corporation: "It is critical that countries pay attention to the proliferation threat from the civilian side if they want to maximize the nonproliferation value of dismantling U.S. nuclear weapons and those of the Former Soviet Republics. If countries ignore the civilian threat, they can compound the problem by making wrong choices in how to deal with military materials."2

It is not widely understood that there is actually far more plutonium in civilian than in military nuclear programs.3

Ever since plutonium, a man-made element, was first produced in gram quantities during World War II, more than 1,200 metric tons of it have been produced in reactors.4 [See chart: "Worldwide Plutonium Production."]

Of this amount, about 260 tons have been produced for weapons; all the rest, nearly three times as much, has been produced in civilian nuclear power reactors. With the end of the superpowers' nuclear arms race, the amount of military plutonium is expected to stay essentially constant and then decline as plutonium from retired warheads is disposed of. But the amounts of civilian plutonium produced in power reactors will grow very rapidly from about 650 tons in 1990 to 2,100 tons in the year 2010---more than eight times the amount of weapons plutonium. [See chart: "Total Military and Civilian Plutonium."]

A major difference between military and civilian plutonium is that most military plutonium has been chemically separated ("reprocessed") from the spent fuel of reactors for direct use in weapons, while most civilian plutonium remains embedded in spent fuel. As long as plutonium remains in highly radioactive spent fuel, it is not immediately accessible for weapons.

However, commercial reprocessing of spent fuel from civilian power reactors is now getting underway on a large scale. The impact of this reprocessing is startling: while in 1990 there was more than twice as much separated, weapons- usable plutonium in military than in civilian programs, by the year 2000 more plutonium suitable for direct use in weapons will exist in civilian than in military programs for the first time. By the year 2010, there will be nearly 550 tons of civilian, weapons-usable plutonium---more than twice the amount in military programs. [See chart: "Separated Military and Civilian Plutonium."]

Even this vast amount of weapons-usable, civilian plutonium will represent only about a quarter of all the plutonium produced in nuclear power reactors by that date. Some 1,550 tons of plutonium will remain in spent fuel, available for reprocessing, by the year 2010. [See chart: "Civilian Plutonium: Separated and in Spent Fuel."]

Considering that less than 8 kilograms (about 18 pounds) of plutonium is enough for one Nagasaki-type bomb, the proliferation risk of all this potential weapons material is enormous. The ostensible purpose for commercial reprocessing is to recover plutonium for "recycling" as fuel in power reactors. But any economic rationale for reprocessing spent fuel and recycling plutonium that may have existed when the NPT came into force 25 years ago has completely evaporated today. At that time, it was feared that world reserves of uranium could not keep pace with demand for reactor fuel, resulting in a shortage of the non-weapons-usable uranium fuel used in civilian power reactors. Today, there is a world glut in cheap uranium, and plutonium-based fuel for power reactors is four to eight times more expensive than comparable uranium fuel.

There are only five nations engaging in commercial reprocessing today--- Britain, France, India, Japan and Russia.5 [See chart: "Civilian Reprocessing Capacity by Nation."] Their programs are being driven largely by inertial forces to protect jobs and the investments of powerful, government-owned reprocessing companies. Reprocessing also continues because these companies are able to hold electrical utility companies at home and abroad to long-term contracts for reprocessing of spent fuel and delivery of plutonium. Many utilities no longer need or want plutonium because it is expensive and controversial, but they face steep penalties if they cancel reprocessing contracts.

Germany has canceled its domestic reprocessing program, and German utilities have begun to cancel their reprocessing contracts with Britain's reprocessing company because uranium fuel is still cheaper than plutonium even after paying the penalties. Japan, however, is expanding its domestic reprocessing program and is the leading foreign customer of the British and French reprocessing companies.

Within five years, Japan will own 55 tons of civilian plutonium, more than any other nation except France. [See chart: "Civilian Separated Plutonium by Nation."] By 2010, it will have acquired between 100 to 130 tons of civilian separated plutonium, representing a quarter to a third of the world total. By that time, Japan will have acquired an amount equivalent to the U.S. military stockpile.

Japan defends its plutonium program as essential to its energy security. However, a recent study by the Nuclear Control Institute found that Japan could acquire a 50-year reserve of uranium fuel for all its reactors for less than half of what it is planning to spend on its plutonium program.

The nuclear-weapons option inherent in the Japanese plutonium program has caused uneasiness among Japan's neighbors. As early as 1976, a U.S. nuclear- weapon expert briefed Japanese and other non-U.S. nuclear officials that civilian, "reactor-grade" plutonium can be used in weapons and that the concept of it's not being suitable for weapons is "fallacious."6 IAEA Director General Hans Blix said in 1990 that "there is no debate on this matter" in the agency's safeguards department.7 Yet, in 1993, Japan's former ambassador for non-proliferation, Ryukichi Imai, stated in an article, "[R]eactor-grade plutonium...is of a nature quite different from what goes into the making of weapons....Whatever the details of this plutonium, it is quite unfit to make a bomb."8

Japanese assertions notwithstanding, a team of former U.S. weapon designers have found that even terrorists would be capable of making an effective, first- generation nuclear weapon if they could obtain enough reactor-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium. [See Mark et.al., "Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?" (1987).]

Compounding the proliferation risks of reactor-grade plutonium is the inability of the IAEA promptly to detect losses of weapons quantities of plutonium from large processing facilities. The IAEA faces substantial uncertainties in measuring plutonium, which tends to stick to the surfaces of plant equipment and is difficult and hazardous to clean out. There are also limitations to the agency's surveillance and containment measures.

The difficulty of safeguarding plutonium was recently illustrated at a pilot-scale plutonium fuel fabrication plant in Japan, where the IAEA has required the operator to clean out the plant and produce nearly 70 kilograms of plutonium that is reported to be stuck in the processing equipment---a procedure expected to take two years to complete. Under such circumstances, the IAEA cannot fulfill its timeliness and detection goals which are designed to meet the safeguards requirement of the NPT, namely "...preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons...." [For more details, see these NCI reports: Leventhal, "The IAEA's Inability to Detect Diversions of Bomb Quantities of Plutonium: IAEA Safeguards Shortcomings---A Critique" (1994), and Miller, "Are IAEA Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-Handling Facilities Effective?" (1990).]

Beyond the diseconomics and the proliferation and terrorism risks of plutonium, there are also the safety and environmental hazards of transporting plutonium and the waste byproducts of reprocessing. Plutonium is fiendishly toxic---microgram quantities imbedded in the lungs after inhalation or in bone after ingestion can cause cancer. In 1987, Japan had to cancel plans to transport its plutonium by air from Europe after failing to develop a crash- worthy shipping cask. In 1992, some 40 nations protested Japan's first large- scale shipment of plutonium by sea after it became known that international standards for the shipping cask were below the fire, collision, and deep- immersion conditions experienced in severe accidents. Just recently, OPANAL, the Latin American atomic energy organization, and the governor of Hawaii both issued strong protests against Japan's first shipment of intensely radioactive reprocessing wastes from France to Japan through the treacherous waters around Cape Horn and then through the Pacific Ocean, adjacent to Hawaii.

Plutonium Current Initiatives

End Notes

1. Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium, U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1994), p.34. Back to document

2. Limiting the Spread of Weapons-Usable Fissile Material, RAND Corporation (1993), P. xii. Back to document

3. Data in these charts are adapted from Albright, Berkhout and Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, (1993). Earlier projections can be found in Albright, "Civilian Inventories of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium," Leventhal and Alexander, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, (1987). Back to document

4. A metric ton equals 1,000 kilograms or 2,200 pounds. All references to "tons" are metric tons. Back to document

5. Reprocessing capacity is shown by weight of the spent fuel reprocessed annually (metric tons of heavy metal per year---MTHM/yr). Plutonium constitutes about 1% of the weight of the spent fuel. Back to document

6. Selden, "Reactor Plutonium and Nuclear Explosives," Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Viewgraphs) (1976). Back to document

7. Letter to the Nuclear Control Institute (1990). Back to document

8. Plutonium, No. 3, October, 1993.Back to document