Plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons has never been used on an industrial scale to create a plutonium-based fuel for nuclear reactors. Yet corporations from the United States and Europe are teaming up for an experimental Department of Energy (DOE) program to mix at least 30 metric tons of weapons plutonium with depleted uranium into a fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

Plutonium from nuclear weapons is in the form of metallic pits that also contain small amounts of other classified materials, and up to one percent gallium. Gallium is a metal that is used as an alloy in the plutonium pits. For plutonium to be made into a reactor fuel it must be purified and converted into an oxide form. Acids and solvents can be used to dissolve the plutonium pits. The plutonium must then be purified and converted to an oxide. This aqueous process creates gallons upon gallons of new liquid radioactive waste. Converting 30 metric tons of plutonium through this process could create as much as 900,000 gallons of liquid radioactive waste that is dangerous and hard to handle.

The DOE is working to develop a "dry" process but this has not yet been developed for industrial-scale use, and the nuclear power industry is demanding that DOE use the aqueous one. Once the plutonium has been purified and converted into an oxide powder, it is then mixed with uranium oxide, made into small ceramic pellets, and loaded into fuel rods. Gallium left in the plutonium oxide will negatively effect the process of converting the plutonium and uranium to a ceramic form, and may affect reactor operation. A process to remove the gallium from weapons-grade plutonium has not been fully developed.

WORKER EXPOSURE

Many families near nuclear communities understandably are concerned about jobs. After all, families need jobs in order to survive. But jobs in plutonium factories may not be worth the risk.

Workers in a plutonium fuel fabrication plant run a high risk of exposure to plutonium—sometimes called the most dangerous substance known. The high alpha radiation of plutonium makes it especially lethal when inhaled or ingested. Tiny particles of plutonium caught in the lungs have a high probability of causing cancer. Plutonium also tends to attack the liver and attach to non-calcified areas of the bone, which affects blood formation.

Workers in a plutonium fuel fabrication plant are also threatened with external gamma radiation exposure from americium-241, which is a decay product of plutonium-241. Production of plutonium fuel could cause many times the worker exposure levels as production of the same amount of uranium fuel.

When weighing the monetary benefits of jobs, families must also consider the health and safety detriments of working with such highly toxic materials.

LOSING TRACK OF PLUTONIUM

The bulk processing of plutonium that occurs at a fuel fabrication plant makes accurate accounting of plutonium nearly impossible. Plutonium may be held up in the fabrication process, stuck to surfaces that are not easily accessible. This may create material accounting discrepancies of a significant amount of plutonium. In May 1994, the plutonium reprocessing plant at Tokai, Japan noticed a discrepancy of 70 kilograms of plutonium, enough for more than a dozen bombs. After spending $100 million and two-years to clean-out and verify the inventory, enough plutonium for a nuclear bomb is still missing. Additional steps in handling plutonium create additional uncertainties in plutonium inventories. Any uncertainties in plutonium accounting are an open invitation for the diversion of plutonium to weapons and other terrorist purposes.

DANGER TO SOCIETY

A plutonium fuel fabrication plant is a threat to nearby communities. Inefficient or damaged filters, fires, or explosions at a plutonium fabrication plant could result in the release of plutonium into the environment, affecting human population. European plutonium reprocessing facilities have repeatedly failed to meet safety standards. Childhood leukemia incidence, among other health problems, is higher near some of Europe's largest plutonium reprocessing facilities. A 1997 study showed that children who had played on beaches near the La Hague reprocessing facility in France more than once a month were almost three times more likely to develop leukemia than those who did not. This facility is operated by the French firm Cogema, which would be the lead contractor under the U.S. Department of Energy’s MOX fuel program.

THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT

All of the issues outlined above also may impact the biosphere, locally, and over time, or with a catastrophe globally. Plutonium has a hazardous-life of 240,000 years. It moves in the environment much more rapidly than previously believed by the federal government. At the Nevada test-site plutonium has been found moving in a plume more than a mile away from an underground test that was set off only about 30 years ago. Previous estimates were that it would take more than 10,000 years for this deadly substance to travel this far.

Like other radioactive materials, in addition to initiating cancers, plutonium is highly mutagenic and can disrupt reproductive cells. It threatens the entire web of life, upon which we depend for food, oxygen, water purification and materials for most of our products.

NEW FACILITIES AND EXTENSION OF OPERATIONS AT OLD ONES

There is no industrial-size MOX fuel fabrication site in the U.S. Small scale MOX fuel development activities were initiated recently at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

In order to accomplish the MOX program, the Department of Energy wants the French firm Cogema to build new plutonium processing plants at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina—adding to the radioactive burden at this highly-polluted facility.

Many people believe it is impossible to effectively fight against the nuclear power industry. In fact, there has not been a successful new nuclear reactor order since 1973. And the only major new atomic facility even proposed since the 1980s, a uranium enrichment plant slated for a poor, African-American community in northern Louisiana, was stopped by citizen activism in 1998.

Moreover, citizens across the country have begun to actively resist existing nuclear reactors. Ten large commercial reactors have been closed, in large part due to citizen activism, in the past decade.

Active and concerned people have proven they can take on the nuclear industry and win.

For more information, contact: Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 1424 16^th Street, #404, Washington, DC 20036, 202.328.0002; fax: 202.462.2183, nirsnet@nirs.org; www.nirs.org