INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPING AND THE NON-PROLIFERATION TRUST

The Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) is an example of how the best-intentioned, best-laid plans can go awry in the new era of nuclear globalization.

The NPT has its roots in an abortive plan by a private, for-profit company to take the world’s high-level atomic waste and ship it for permanent storage on a Pacific Island. With no government willing to ship its waste for storage to the Pacific, due to transportation, proliferation and other concerns, that idea quickly was shot down.

The U.S. government, by virtue of contracts with the world’s nuclear utilities for which it provided uranium enrichment services, can determine where a huge percentage of the world’s high-level nuclear waste ultimately can go. This principle was established for non-proliferation reasons, to help ensure that non-nuclear weapons nations could not gain access to the plutonium that exists in huge quantities in commercial nuclear reactor fuel. Thus, few, if any countries outside Russia and Eastern Europe—which never received U.S. uranium enrichment services, can send their high-level waste anywhere without U.S. permission.

While the U.S. policy may put some nations in a quandary, and anger other nations who would rather their waste be placed on our shores, the policy has at least been quite effective at ensuring that no nation becomes a global radioactive waste dump.

Enter environmentalist and nuclear weapons expert Tom Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Cochran is (justifiably) frustrated by the lack of U.S. government funding for the protection of weapons-grade plutonium in Russia and by Russia’s continued insistence on reprocessing nuclear fuel to obtain more plutonium. In his view, the plutonium in Russia represents a threat to world security—by rogue nations and/or terrorists obtaining sufficient materials to build nuclear weapons—that requires drastic measures.

So Cochran contacted the principals of the ill-fated Pacific Islands endeavor—or they contacted him--it really doesn’t matter who said who to whom first.

The end result is that Cochran convinced them to reconstitute their effort as a non-profit corporation (for which, presumably, the principals would be well-paid for their expertise and involvement), that would seek to import commercial high-level atomic waste into Russia, and store it there, in return for substantial financial commitments that would be used to stop reprocessing in Russia.

This new, non-profit corporation is called the Non-Proliferation Trust. And, if it succeeds in its efforts, it may completely change the way the world views, addresses, and stores high-level radioactive waste.

It could also cause a brand-new international trade in high-level atomic waste, could bring in World Trade Organization involvement in nuclear waste issues, and could result in Russia—probably the world’s most radioactively-contaminated nation—becoming the nuclear waste dump for the entire globe.

All with the best intentions….

The Non-Proliferation Trust concept has gone through several major changes since it was first described to NIRS in a private meeting about 18 months ago. This article is based on the most recent material available to NIRS, dated October 1999. The details of the plan may have changed again since then.
According to these materials, the NPT would import some 10,000 metric tons of high-level waste from commercial nuclear reactors, apparently primarily from Asia, which would result in revenues of more than $11.5 Billion.

Nearly $3.5 Billion of this would go toward transporting the fuel and establishing a temporary storage facility to accept the waste. Somewhat over $2 Billion would go toward building a permanent geological high-level waste storage dump in Russia—a project that has eluded the U.S. despite costs more than ten times that amount. Three Billion would go toward clean-up of Russian nuclear sites—a worthy task by anyone’s evaluation: although it is unclear who would oversee this task (in an early version of the contract, the Natural Resources Defense Council would have received some $200 million to oversee this work; but NRDC declined to take on this role), and clean-up of the U.S. facilities—which are not as dirty, but do cost more to clean—is anticipated to be on the order of $50 Billion or more. The proposal also would provide about $2.5 Billion to protect jobs in the formerly closed nuclear cities in Russia—to ensure that nuclear experts do not move to rogue countries--and more than $2 Billion in direct aid to Russian citizens, especially pensioners and orphans.

And in return, all Russia would have to do is agree to become a dumping ground for commercial nuclear waste from across the world.

The NPT plan has earned the enmity of virtually every Russian environmental organization, despite its intent at stopping reprocessing and assisting in clean-up of contaminated sites. Why? Because Russians, like everyone else, don’t see a reason for their nation to become a dumping ground for the world’s atomic waste.

In addition, they doubt that NPT, or any other organization, can effectively control Minatom—the Russian nuclear governmental agency—or stop it from reprocessing. Indeed, Minatom is working on its own to import radioactive waste and keep the money for itself—forget clean-up or a commitment to ending reprocessing.

In late 1998, Minatom sent a letter to DOE Secretary Bill Richardson (which was leaked to NIRS) offering to take U.S. high-level waste. Richardson politely said no-thank-you.

Now, Minatom is actively seeking a change in Russian policy—which requires a vote from the Russian Parliament—to allow the importation of high-level waste from countries not supplied with fuel by the Soviet Union. Such a change in the law would be necessary for either the NPT project, or Minatom’s own aspirations, to continue. A vote was scheduled for just before the recent Russian election of Vladimir Putin as President, but was tabled—the fourth time a similar attempt was stopped before it started. Just before the scheduled vote, Russian and U.S. environmental groups circulated a joint letter condemning the idea of an international Russian nuclear waste facility.

Still, even if the Russian Parliament ultimately approves the importation of commercial high-level nuclear waste, the U.S Department of Energy has the final say. Under contracts with virtually all of the world’s nuclear utilities, the DOE can essentially veto any movement of the waste—on non-proliferation grounds—to any other country. This is because the U.S. supplied much of the enriched uranium that powered the reactors in the first place, and it is nearly impossible for any nuclear country to differentiate between the enriched uranium supplied by the U.S. and that supplied by other nations.

The NPT proposal may have the best intentions, but it could open a very wide door for Russia to become an international atomic waste dumping ground. To counteract the proposal, NIRS, IEER, Greenpeace, WISE-Paris, and other groups are working to fashion an alternative plan that would provide incentives for Russia—and other countries—to end reprocessing of nuclear fuel and prevent a new international waste trade.

In the meantime, Russian groups, NIRS and others are also working to prevent Minatom from establishing its own nuclear waste dumps in Russia, that likely would present even greater environmental challenges.

Moreover, even the concept of an international nuclear waste dump is anathema to environmental organizations, since if the concept of trade in nuclear waste takes root, it would be only a matter of time before the World Trade Organization could step in and challenge national radiation safety standards as barriers to international waste trade competition—an outcome that would be intolerable by any public health standpoint. —Michael Mariotte