Nix MOX

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The Department of Energy recently decided to pursue two options for the disposal of surplus military plutonium -- vitrification and conversion to mixed oxide fuel. The decision is based on two grounds: 1) The US should proceed in parallel with Russia, which will use its plutonium in this way anyway; and 2) We need a technical insurance policy in case insurmountable technical problems confront plutonium vitrification. Let us consider these two issues in turn.

The argument for pursuing the MOX option in order to have symmetry with the Russians is not a sound one. Indeed, the timing for such a decision hardly could be worse. The danger of a black market in plutonium is especially acute today because of the enormous economic distress in Russia. This was epitomized by the suicide of the director of Chelyabinsk-70, one of Russia's leading nuclear labs, reportedly because lab personnel had not been paid their meager $50 salaries for months.

At the nearby nuclear weapons industrial facility known as Chelyabinsk-65, more than 60,000 pounds of plutonium are stored in 12,000 stainless steel containers the size of thermos bottles. Two or three of them contain enough plutonium to make a nuclear bomb hundreds of times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Moreover, Russia continues to separate more plutonium from used nuclear-reactor fuel in a chemical-processing facility. The RT-1 plant at Chelyabinsk-65 is separating one to two tons of weapons-usable plutonium every year. The Russian nuclear establishment proclaims plutonium to be a national energy treasure but is not yet using it as a reactor fuel. The one thing that Russia is missing to perpetuate its current plutonium policies is a plant to fabricate plutonium into a reactor fuel -- that is, a MOX plant (see main article).

If Russia builds such a plant it could not only use it to make surplus weapons plutonium into fuel, it also could use it to make MOX fuel out of commercial plutonium. This would encourage Russia to continue operating its reprocessing plant to separate more plutonium, creating greater risks of diversion. Instead of encouraging Russia to stop the production and accumulation of weapons-usable plutonium, a US policy favoring MOX fuel would help to perpetuate it.

At an October 1996 international technical meeting of government officials in Paris, Russian officials refused to rule out the commercial use of a MOX plant built for the purpose of converting plutonium into non-weapons usable form. Moreover, Russia's nuclear establishment is going along with the idea of using MOX fuel in its light water reactors mainly because the US has promoted that option. The Russian idea for MOX has been to use it in breeder reactors, and Minatom wants the MOX plant that might be built there to have the capability not only to fabricate light water reactor (LWR) MOX fuel, but also breeder reactor MOX fuel (which contains a higher proportion of plutonium).

So far, US-Russian post-Cold War relations on nuclear issues have involved the United States only in activities that increase nuclear safety. That would not be the case with MOX fuel use, which would raise new safety issues. Satisfactory resolution of those issues would be difficult, especially given the weak financial condition of many nuclear power plants, many of whose customers cannot pay their electricity bills. Moreover, Russia's agency for nuclear regulation, Gosatomnadzor, is politically weak relative to Minatom and the Defense Ministry. This raises questions about the integrity with which licensing for MOX fuel use in Russian LWRs might be done. Given all these problems, an accident in a Russian LWR while it was using MOX fuel could cause serious damage to US-Russian relations and to plutonium disposition in Russia, where timely progress is most crucial.

The other argument that the DOE uses for pursuing the MOX option is that of a technical insurance policy. While the idea of such insurance is a sound one, it does not require the US to pursue a MOX option. A similar result can be achieved without the negative non-proliferation consequences by pursing ceramic immobilization of plutonium as a back-up to vitrification, and by building three or four vitrification pilot plants using different glass-making technologies.

Ceramic immobilization has a great deal in common with MOX technology, so the technological insurance aspects are achieved by developing it. The uncertainties surrounding vitrification are, moreover, quite low, because there is already considerable global experience with vitrification of highly radioactive waste. Moreover, reactor safety issues and the vigorous public opposition to the use of MOX would not be obstacles for ceramic immobilization. When these problems are taken into account, it appears that the MOX option is a poor choice for an insurance policy.

A great deal of the impetus for pursuing the MOX option comes from concern in Russia about jobs in nuclear weapons plants, but this can and should be addressed in a manner compatible with non-proliferation objectives. A sound plutonium management and disposition program would first carefully account for and improve the storage of all plutonium, both military and commercial, at a level of effort far greater than the current bilateral program. Second, it would build several pilot vitrification plants and pursue ceramic immobilization research and development vigorously. Two of the pilot plants could be joint Russian-US facilities, one being built in the US and the other in Russia. Russia's greater experience with vitrification (they have had a plant for vitrifying radioactive waste in operation in since 1991) should be a great asset to this joint effort.

The United States should declare immobilization to be the sole approach it will use for all its surplus plutonium and encourage Russia and other countries to do the same. Practically all parties agree that plutonium is not an economical energy source today. But if the Russians insist that plutonium may be an economical energy resource in the future, an understanding might be that the plutonium could one day be re-extracted from the glass (after mutual US-Russian agreement that it had become economical) under international safeguards to prevent diversion. Russia needs money and jobs, but while there may be jobs in MOX, there is no money it. A net flow of money into Russia would be accomplished much more effectively by getting Russia to stop reprocessing. Additional money would come from greatly accelerating the conversion of Russian highly enriched uranium (which is also a proliferation problem) into a reactor fuel with real market value.

Of all the nuclear powers, only the United States has adopted a prudent non-proliferation and economic policy on the use of plutonium as an energy source. As a result, it is the only country that is in a position to take the lead on this issue. Instead, the Energy Department is proposing to follow Russia down a road that would increase nuclear dangers by entrenching pork-barrel interests in plutonium in Russia and creating them anew in the United States. Today, plutonium is one of the most serious security threats facing the world. It should be vitrified and further production stopped.

For more information on vitrification, see the Centerfold.

Portions of this article appeared in "Heading Off the Plutonium Peril," by Arjun Makhijani, The Washington Post, December 5, 1996. Used with permission

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