Why Environmentalists Say NIX to MOX Plutonium Fuel

 

MOX is short for "mixed oxide" plutonium fuel for nuclear power reactors…reactors that were designed for uranium fuel….MOX is also short for a new government program to make plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons less usable for future bombs by putting it in commercial power reactors. Tax dollars would pay the nuclear utility to irradiate the "bomb fuel." There is an alternative. The alternative is called 'plutonium immobilization' and uses nuclear waste left over from making the bombs in the first place to secure weapons plutonium by making it lethally radioactive, just as the reactor would, at much lower risk.

 

Plutonium bomb fuel increases the risk of a reactor accident and ages the reactor more rapidly than uranium fuel. Uranium and plutonium are different when it comes to how they split -- which is what nuclear reactors do -- split atoms.  Plutonium is much harder to control. That is why the government used it to make nuclear bombs in the first place! It goes boom! Reactors run the risk of accidents even with the uranium fuel that  they were designed for. Plutonium fuel increases this risk. No one has ever used weapons grade plutonium for reactor fuel, nor actual dismantled warheads, where the weapons grade plutonium was mixed with a host of other ingredients to make the bombs "go." Bomb fuel will also wear out the reactor components more quickly. MOX is an experiment, and one with very high stakes.

 

Plutonium fuel doubles the consequences if there is a major reactor accident. Chernobyl was the largest industrial accident in history. New reports say that the worst is yet to come in the toll of cancers. Chernobyl was the dumping of a reactor using uranium fuel into the atmosphere and the surrounding earth and water. Plutonium is so much more toxic and cancer causing that MOX fuel would double the number of cancers that a major reactor accident in South Carolina would cause over time.

 

Plutonium fuel makes really bad nuclear waste worse. The waste that comes from the use of MOX fuel is hotter and more radioactive even than the high-level waste that uranium fuel produces. In addition, the so-called "low-level" waste that would be sent to the dump at Barnwell would have more plutonium in it than the reactor waste that is sent there now. Emissions to air and water that are a daily event at atomic reactors would also be more radioactive. This is simply because plutonium is a heavier element, and when it splits, more radiation is formed.

 

Some people say that plutonium is super fuel and we shouldn't waste it. For all the reasons above, it is a super bad fuel, and plutonium should be treated as a waste and handled carefully to prevent spreading it in our environment.

 

Plutonium on the road is not only a health hazard, it is an invitation for attack. Until the weapons grade plutonium is immobilized or alternately used as fuel, it is high-grade, best-in-the-world bomb material and will be treated as such by all. Reactor site security guards will have "shoot to kill authority" to protect the "fresh fuel." Where is the US commitment to nuclear non-proliferation? How can we criticize North Korea for merging their military and civilian nuclear programs?

 

Plutonium is a commodity under the MOX program. At a time when corporations are beginning to move towards more benign materials and packaging, we should not use tax dollars to subsidize the nuclear industry to put the most deadly of elements into commerce. The alternative, immobilization, would treat plutonium as a waste and keep it within the boundaries of the DOE weapons complex.

 

All of the MOX plutonium fuel program would impact the Carolinas. Plutonium --about 48 tons of weapons grade plutonium would be brought here from other locations in the nuclear weapons complex. The Savannah River Site is where this plutonium would be processed into a powder and cooked into fuel. MOX would be transported across South Carolina to the two reactors near Rock Hill called Catawba and two reactors on Lake Wylie near Charlotte called McGuire, all operated by Duke Power.

 

For more information: 

Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Southeast www.nirs.org

P.O. Box 7586  Asheville,  NC  28802      828-251-2060       nirs.se@mindspring.com