The two principal options for disposing of plutonium recovered from retired nuclear warheads are the irradiation in reactors of mixed-oxide fuel made from this plutonium (the MOX option), and direct disposal of warhead plutonium by means of vitrifying it with high-level radioactive waste (the VHLW option). The MOX option poses greater risks of diversions and thefts of warhead material, of reversal of the disarmament process, and of other adverse effects on international arms control and nonproliferation efforts than does vitrification. Proposals for transferring warhead-plutonium MOX fuel to third countries not now possessing nuclear weapons pose additional risks. To minimize proliferation and terrorism risks associated with plutonium, a symmetrical regime should be developed to address the dual threat of military and civilian plutonium by placing comparable obligations on nuclear weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states not to produce or use separated plutonium in any form.
THE MOX AND VITRIFICATION OPTIONS COMPARED: A NON-PROLIFERATION PERSPECTIVE
Paul Leventhal and Steven Dolley
Nuclear Control Institute
INTRODUCTIONLast year's U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study on the disposition of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons emphasized that "further steps should be taken to reduce the proliferation risks posed by all of the world's plutonium stocks, military and civilian, separated and unseparated...."1 A similar point was made in a Rand Corporation report which said: "It is critical that countries pay attention to the proliferation threat from the civilian side if they want to maximize the non-proliferation value of dismantling U.S. nuclear weapons and those of the FSRs (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
To date, the U.S. Government has been unable to draw both elements of the plutonium problem, military and civilian, into a unified, coherent national plutonium policy. The strong interconnection between military and civilian aspects of U.S. HEU policy has been missing in the case of plutonium. The principal reasons for this include the political sensitivity of the United States confronting Western Europe, Japan and Russia over their civilian plutonium programs, as well as resistance from nuclear industry representatives and government policymakers who insist that plutonium is a resource to be utilized, not a waste to be disposed of.
If current plans proceed, we are heading for a world with far more separated plutonium in civilian than in military programs3---a trend that can only work against effective disposition of military plutonium by the present nuclear-weapon states. How best, then, can we make a tight fit of U.S. plutonium disposal policy and nonproliferation objectives?
The NAS study proposed three proliferation risk factors for use in comparing plutonium-disposition options: risk of theft; risk of reversal; and impact on arms reduction.4 Judged by each of these criteria, the option of irradiating weapons plutonium in nuclear reactors (the MOX option) poses far greater proliferation risks than the option of vitrifying plutonium with highly radioactive waste (the VHLW option).
The MOX Option Poses a Greater Risk of Diversion and TheftThe MOX option presents a greater risk of diversion primar ily because of the fuelfabrication stage, a process that is particularly difficult to safeguard effectively in view of plutonium's characteristic of sticking to the surfaces of processing equipment, and of the large, unavoidable uncertainties in the measurements of this "held-up" material. This stage is susceptible to systematic diversion schemes by state operators of the plants, or by individual plant workers in collaboration with outside states or groups. This stage is avoided entirely with the VHLW option, making it a proliferation risk unique to the MOX option.
Recent experience suggests that the proliferation risk at this stage of disposition could be substantial. Difficulties at the Plutonium Fuel Processing Facility (PFPF) in Japan suggest that even purportedly stateoftheart MOX fabrication plants are difficult if not impossible to safeguard effectively. In May 1994, it was disclosed that a major plutonium inventory discrepancy has been building up at the PFPF since the plant began operating in 1988. The Japanese government and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claim that this plutonium, amounting to about 70 kilograms, or more than eight significant quantities (SQs), is not missing because it has been measured as being held up---that is, stuck to surfaces---in the remote-handling equipment. Such measurements are taken by means of neutron coin cidence counting and are subject to a wide range of uncertainty, perhaps as much as 30 percent in some instances.5 To end the uncertainty, the IAEA recently requested that Japan cut open the glove boxes to remove and physically produce the held-up plutonium for the purpose of establishing the plant's inventory---a request that has been strongly resisted by the Japanese and will not be met promptly, as the IAEA had asked.6
This controversy over the plutonium holdup problem at MOX fuel fabrication plants holds valuable lessons for the warhead-plutonium disposition process. MOX disposal schemes have unacceptable uncertainties and risks built into them that will make it impossible to determine whether all warhead plutonium has been accounted for. Such uncertainty could severely undermine the trust nations place in an international nuclear arms reductions and nonproliferation regime predicated upon recycling warhead plutonium as fuel for reactors.
There are also risks of theft with the MOX option that arise during transportation of plutonium and MOX fuel. Plutonium oxide must be shipped to MOX fuel fabrication plants, and fresh MOX fuel shipped to reactors. Such shipments are susceptible to hijackings and attacks by terrorists. By contrast, the VHLW option does not require a fuel transportation stage, and does not pose a commensurate risk.
In a vitrification disposition scheme, separated plutonium is vulnerable to diversion only prior to its placement in the melter. After that, it is mixed with molten glass and, in most proposals, highly radioactive fission products, making it inaccessible for all practical purposes. Safeguards efforts for vitrification must concentrate on preparation of plutonium for the melter (e.g., conver sion from metallic to oxide form). At least one vitrification technology, the GMODS system under development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, would allow plutonium to be added in unaltered metallic form, avoiding this stage entirely and eliminating this diversion vulnerability.7
The NAS study concluded that fabrication of HLW waste logs would . . . be easier to safeguard than fabrication of MOX fuel bundles. Monitors would have to confirm only the single step of mixing the plutonium with the HLW. Once that step had taken place, the plutonium would be in an intensely radioactive mix and very difficult to divert. There would be no capability within the vitrification facility for reseparating the plutonium from the HLW. MOX fabrication, by contrast, requires many steps involving largescale bulk handling of plutonium, with inherent accounting uncertainties, and at each step of the process the plutonium remains in a form from which it could be readily reseparated."8
The MOX Option Poses a Greater Risk of ReversalThe proliferation resistance of the final waste forms largely determines the potential reversibility of plutonium disposition, and is a function of three factors. The first is the amount of residual plutonium remaining in the final waste forms. The MOX option would leave less plutonium in final waste than the VHLW option. However, it is misleading to speak of MOX "burning" of weapons plutonium as if all or even most of the plutonium is consumed during irradiation. In fact, no more than 25 to 30 percent of the total plutonium present in the fresh MOX would be fissioned.9
The second factor is retrievability of the residual plutonium. Separation of plutonium from fresh MOX fuel is a straightforward chemical process. Reprocessing irradiated MOX fuel by means of PUREX employs proven technology that could recover substantial amounts of plutonium. Chemical separation of plutonium from VHLW is also possible. Separation of plutonium from irradiated MOX and from vitrified glass logs are similar chemical processes, roughly comparable in difficulty.
The third factor is the isotopic composition of the residual plutonium. Plutonium disposed of in VHLW remains weapons grade, except for normal radioactive decay. Weapons plutonium in MOX contains a considerably smaller proportion of fissile isotopes after irradiation than before. This factor, however, is not nearly as important from a nonproliferation perspective as some have argued. Many MOX proponents emphasize the degree to which the isotopics of the weapons plutonium would be altered by irradiation in a particular reactor technology---that is, the degree to which the Pu-239 proportion can be reduced---as if this factor should be decisive in choosing among disposition technologies.
This is an inappropriate criterion by which to assess proliferation risks. Some advocates of MOX disposition perpetuate a dangerous myth that reactor-grade plutonium cannot be used to make workable weapons. The ability to construct a weapon from reactor-grade plutonium was demonstrated decades ago. It is dangerous even to consider it an open question. Hans Blix, director-general of the IAEA, has declared that there is "no debate" on this point in the Safeguards Department of the IAEA, and that the agency considers even high burnup reactor-grade plutonium to be usable in nuclear weapons.10 In June 1994, U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary declassified further details of a 1962 test of a nuclear device using reactor-grade plutonium, which successfully produced a nuclear yield.11
In a future breakout scenario, the United States (or Russia) could presumably draw on its nuclear test data and predictive capabilities to reconfigure weapons designs and reconstitute a large arsenal, even from plutonium isotopically degraded to reactorgrade by irradiation in MOX. Also, development of laser isotope separation, such as AVLIS, will eventually permit the "mining" of the Pu-239 isotope from reactor-grade plutonium if isotopic degradation were determined to have some utility from a nonproliferation perspective (for example, to establish parity with non-nuclear-weapon states storing high burnup plutonium in the form of spent fuel), weapons plutonium could be mixed with reactor-grade plutonium, possibly from surplus stockpiles of separated civil plutonium in Great Britain or Russia, to dilute it isotopically prior to vitrification with HLW. The point is that isotopic degradation does not pose a substantial enough barrier to remilitarization of warhead plutonium, and therefore does not constitute a compelling argument in favor of the MOX option.
The MOX Option Poses a Threat to Arms Control and Nonproliferation EffortsMost important, the MOX options sends the wrong fuel cycle policy signal. In its nonproliferation policy statement, the Clinton administration declared that "the United States does not encourage the civil use of plutonium and, accordingly, does not itself engage in plutonium reprocessing for either nuclear power or nuclear explosive purposes."12 Though it does not necessarily involve further reprocessing, the MOX option would clearly encourage the civil use of plutonium, which in some countries like Japan includes plans for reprocessing irradiated MOX fuel. The U.S. Government (or its duly authorized agents) would be engaging in MOX activities for the first time on a commercial scale, legitimizing the use of MOX in civil nuclear power programs.
Such a sea change in U.S. policy would confuse and complicate U.S. nonproliferation diplomacy. It would send the wrong signal to Western Europe, Japan, and other nonnuclear weapon state members of the NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). The NAS study emphasized the importance of the "Fuel Cycle Policy Signal":
[P]olicymakers will have to take into account the fact that choosing to use weapons plutonium in reactors would be perceived by some as representing generalized U.S. approval of separated plutonium fuel cycles, thereby compromising the ability of the U.S. government to oppose such fuel cycles elsewhere. Conversely, choosing to dispose of weapons plutonium without extracting any energy from it could be interpreted as reflecting a generalized U.S. government opposition to plutonium recycle. Either choice could have an impact on fuel cycle debates now underway in Japan, Europe, and Russia.13
The MOX option sends the wrong fuel cycle policy signal in three ways. First, the MOX option effectively declares that plutonium has an asset value, and that the energy contained within it should be viewed as a "national asset" (as the U.S. DOE puts it) or even "national treasure" (as the Russians put it).
Second, the MOX option suggests that a plutonium fuel cycle can be effectively safeguarded, and the use of MOX for weapons plutonium disposition would surely be cited by plutonium advocates as a government "seal of approval" on the process.
Third, the MOX option would be portrayed as giving credibility to the claim that plutonium recycle in lightv ater reactors (LWRs) is essential to nuclear waste management. Despite the fact that both unaltered spent fuel and high-level waste derived from reprocessing produce comparable amounts of penetrating radiation and short-term thermal output14, reprocessing advocates have seized upon the separation and reuse of plutonium as the sine qua non of effective waste management. Reprocessing proponents would portray the use of MOX in the disposition exercise as a U.S. government policy statement that plutonium can be effectively disposed of by means of fissioning it in WIOXfueled reactors. The MOX fuel used to irradiate weapons plutonium could be reprocessed, and the plutonium industry, particularly in Japan and Germany, would continue to press this option as a means to "eliminate" completely plutonium over hundreds of years.
Another general category of danger from the MOX option would be the perpetuation of overseas plutonium and breeder reactor programs. Russia's current position is to keep weapons plutonium in longterm storage pending its eventual use as fuel for LWRs and fast breeder reactors. The U.S. has correctly opposed such longterm storage on nonproliferation grounds, but it would have little credible basis upon which to oppose Russia's plutonium fuel cycle plans if the U.S. were to select the MOX option. In this same sense, the MOX option would also undercut U.S. efforts to oppose European and Japanese plutonium programs.
A further danger is that the MOX option would undercut U.S. nonproliferation diplomacy directed at socalled "rogue states." With the U.S. actively pursuing the MOX option, it would become far more difficult to deny nations of proliferation concern their "right" to civil use of plutonium. North Korea claimed, albeit with little credibility, that its reprocessing plant at Yongbyon was intended to separate plutonium for use in MOX fuel for civilian nuclear power reactors. Though it agreed in October 1994 to abandon plans for indigenous reprocessing facilities, the disposition of plutonium contained in the remain ing MAGNOX spent fuel and in future LWR spent fuel has yet to be determined. Overseas reprocessing has not been ruled out; nor has recycling of plutonium as MOX fuel in North Korea been specifically precluded. At the third NPT PrepComm meeting, Iran threatened to withdraw from the NPT because, it charged, Iran and other NPT nonnuclearweapon states were being denied nuclear technology that was their due under the terms of Article IV. India and Pakistan, though not NPT members, pursue plutonium programs that they justify as a legitimate part of their civil nuclear programs.
The only credible way to oppose the separation and use of plutonium in nations of proliferation concern is to oppose it comprehensively---that is, to oppose its use in any nations for any purpose. Such an approach is effectively precluded if the U.S. insists upon retaining the right to use MOX fuel in civilian reactors, even if only for the purpose of weapons plutonium disposition.
Third-Country MOX OptionsA number of proposals call for the use of weapons-plutonium MOX fuel in civilian reactors in non-nuclear-weapon states such as Canada, Japan, and Germany. One approach calls on the United States to offer these nations MOX fuel fabricated from weapons plutonium at a substantial discount, as well as final disposition of some of their commercial spent fuel, in exchange for the cancellation of some of their reprocessing contracts.15 For example, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is considering the option of irradiating weapons plutonium in the form of MOX fuel in CANDU reactors in Canada, and the Canadian electric utility Ontario Hydro has already volunteered some of its reactors for this mission. DOE is also examing the possibility of shipping weapons plutonium to France, Great Britain or Germany, to be fabricated into MOX for irradiation in Western European LWRs.16 Such "third-country" approaches sometimes attempt to link warhead plutonium disposition with another major nonproliferation goal, avoiding accumulation of surplus separated civil plutonium. Though appealing in concept, they pose their own unique proliferation risks and might prove unworkable in practice.
Some nations might be unwilling to accept MOX fabricated with weaponsgrade plutonium. As discussed above, plutonium advocates continue to draw a distinction (albeit an inaccurate and dangerous one) between weapon-grade and reactor-grade plutoium in their attempts to downplay the proliferation risks of plutonium recycle. They may find themselves hoist by their own petard, unable to accept a U.S. offer of MOX which contains weapons-grade plutonium. The mere fact that the plutonium was formerly nuclear weapons components may make the material politically unacceptable, particularly in Japan.
A third-country approach might actually end up giving aid and comfort to the civil plutonium programs it seeks to undermine. If the U.S. were to provide MOX to foreign consumers at argain prices, the effect would be to offset the poor economics of reprocessing and plutonium recycle that now threaten to collapse the civilian plutonium industry of its own weight. Indeed, German nuclear utilities have recently begun to cancel their post-2000 reprocessing contracts because of the prohibitive costs of reprocessing services and using MOX fuel.17 The only way reprocessing service consumers would accept the U.S. offer is if it were to save them a significant amount of money compared with their current reprocessing contracts and MOX cost projections. Otherwise, why accept the political headaches of canceling contracts and reorganizing their whole plan for the back end of the fuel cycle? If, however, the proposal does save money for consumers of reprocessing services and MOX fuel, the U.S. will effectively be subsidizing the future of plutonium recycle in Japan, Germany, and other nations.
Also, the third-country approach would grease the regulatory skids for LWR MOX in foreign countries. Not all reactors in Germany, and none yet in Japan, are currently licensed for LWR MOX fuel. This proposal would give MOX advocates a flag to wrap themselves in against domestic opposition, namely, the higher purpose of "nonproliferation" and "international security."
This proposal, by involving much more plutonium transportation and facilities, and additional nations, would considerably complicate physical protection and verification of plutonium disposition, especially given the involvement of NNWS (Canada, Japan, Germany, Belgium, and so on). It is not apparent how this problem would be managed bilaterally between the U.S. and Russia, or multilaterally with all nations involved and the IAEA.
The proposal could also present security risks. It would require a number of MOX fuel sea shipments. If MOX were fabricated overseas, plutonium metal or oxide would be shipped.
Air shipment of plutonium has been effectively banned in the U.S. and is being subjected to severe restrictions by the IAEA because of the need to develop a crashworthy cask. A number of security and safety concerns were raised about the 1992 sea shipment of plutonium from France to Japan, and many nations expressed outrage, banning the shipment from their waters. The same concerns would apply to shipments of MOX from the U.S. to third countries. Such shipments would provide a potential target for terrorists.
The approach might also aggravate regional instability. North and South Korea, in particular, would be deeply troubled by a proposal to ship dozens of tons of weaponsgrade plutonium to Japan (even in the form of MOX fuel). This might create a number of risks, including the possible scuttling of the U.S.-North Korea deal of October 1994.18
Plans that call for the U.S. to accept enormous amounts of foreign spent fuel (up to 7,000 MT by one estimate) as an incentive for third countries to accept MOX made from U.S. weapons plutonium, could run into strong public and Congressional opposition. Recently, even relatively small takebacks of HEU research reactor fuel, which have a direct nonproliferation justification, have met with strenuous opposition and provoked continuing litigation. A proposal that opponents could paint as "taking the world's nuclear garbage" would be extremely unpopular, despite attempts to justify it on national security grounds.
Congressional and local opponents are unlikely to consider thousands of tons of foreign spent fuel to be merely a "marginal" increase in the repository load. The McClure amendment to the Nuclear NonProliferation Act of 1978 provides a congressional mechanism to block importation of foreign commercial spent fuel. Any such import must sit before Congress for 30 days before a license for such an import can be issued.19
Some have claimed that reducing interim storage of weapons plutonium in the U.S. under a third-country approach would deflect such opposition. Although U.S. takeback of foreign spent commercial fuel would increase waste storage require ments, they argue that the reduced need to store weapons plutonium in the United States pending disposition would offset this burden. This analysis ignores several factors, including the much larger volume of spent fuel compared to weapons plutonium, and the difference in storage requirements for spent fuel and plutonium. The U.S. already has interim storage capacity for weapons plutonium "pits" at the PANTEX facility in Texas, but where would the U.S. store thousands of tons of foreign spent commercial fuel? There is currently no licensed repository or large-scale interim storage even for U.S. commercial nuclear power spent fuel, let alone foreign commercial fuel. U.S. nuclear utilities have already sued DOE over repository delays, and are unlikely to sit by quietly while foreign reactor operators cut in front of them in line.
Such an approach also invites European retaliation. Reprocessing interests in France and Great Britain could offer to renegotiate reprocessing contracts at lower prices to undercut the U.S. deal. These firms would probably be quite willing to do this, to avoid the prospect of having their reprocessing contracts canceled entirely. These firms would be in a position to undercut any MOX price DOE could offer, rendering the third-country approach financially unattractive to foreign utilities.
Recommendations for a Comprehensive National Plutonium PolicyThe essential first step for a comprehensive U.S. plutonium policy is for the United States to make a clear choice of direct disposal of plutonium as a waste over its use as a fuel. It will be easier to gain effective control now than to deal with unthinkable consequences later on from loss of control of commerce in atom bomb material.
Two separate initiatives should be developed for dealing with military and civilian plutonium, to proceed on separate tracks but eventually be brought together into a unified international regime. On the military track, the U.S. should move assertively to strike a deal with the Russians to pursue vitrification in a joint venture underwritten by the United States. The U.S. should make clear that no U.S. funds will be made available for using plutonium in reactors or for reprocessing spent fuel. In stead, a reciprocal approach to joint construction, operation and inspection of vitrification plants in Russia and the U.S. should be proposed.
On the civilian track, the U.S. should appeal to the Russians that it is in their interest to discourage production of civilian plutonium production in the world as they prepare to drawn down their weapons stocks. That means suspending their own civilian plutonium program on grounds that the security interest in doing so far exceeds any economic or interest in the energy value of plutonium. Given the extreme diseconomics of plutonium fuels which cost four to eight times more than low-enriched uranium fuel20, and the still early stage of Russian work on LWR MOX and the RT-2 reprocessing plant, now is the best time to appeal to Russia to halt its civil plutonium program. Easy assumptions about Russian unwillingness to negotiate on this issue should not be allowed to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
U.S.-Russian cooperation would begin with storage of plutonium until jointly run vitrification plants are constructed. These plants should be jointly managed and inspected, with supplementary safeguards applied by the IAEA (similar to the Argentina-Brazil example).21 This initiative could be offered as the basis for an international regime to be joined by other nuclearweapon states and by non-nuclear-weapon states possessing excess plutonium (i.e., separated plutonium in excess of R&D needs).
As the U.S.-Russian regime is broadened, it could serve as a "magnet" to draw in excess plutonium from other nations for disposal in vitrified form. Glass logs would be subject to joint inspections by the regime's participants and by the IAEA. The military and civilian tracks can be drawn together by means of negotiations for a fissile material cutoff convention now getting underway at the UN Committee on Disarmament in Geneva. Negotiations should be broadened to include cutoff of production of separated, civilian plutonium and civilian HEU. They are now limited to a cutoffof only dedicated military fissile materials and fissile materials produced outside of safeguards, thus allowing civilian production under safeguards to proceed.
The objective should be the achievement of an international system in which disposal, not production and stockpiling, of separated plutonium becomes the accepted norm, and international safeguards evolve into a workable system of verifying the absence of separated plutoniumthat is, no production or acquisition of plutonium in weaponsusable form. The present safe guards system has the impossible task of verifying the peaceful use of separated, weaponsusable plutonium. Verifying its absence is far more straightforward than guaranteeing its peaceful use.
To achieve such a symmetrical and relatively benign regime, it will be necessary to explode the myth of "peaceful plutonium," a myth built on two fallacies---the "effectiveness" of international safeguards and the significant "difference" between reactor-grade and weapons-grade plutonium. Reactor options for the disposition of plutonium from dismantled weapons perpetuate both of these fallacies, and they should be rejected.
REFERENCES1. Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences, Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium [NAS study]. 1994, p. 34.Back to document
2. Brian Chow and Kenneth Solomon, Limiting the Spread of Weapon-Usable Fissile Materials, Rand Corporation Report, November 1993, p. xii.Back to document
3. David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, 1993, p. 200 & p. 206. Albright et al. calculate that 257 metric tons of plutonium were in military inventories at the end of 1990. By 2010, they project that up to 546 metric tons of plutonium will have been separated from civilian spent fuel, and that up to 266 metric tons will remain as surplus.Back to document
4. NAS study, 1994, pp. 23-27.Back to document
5. Paul Leventhal, "IAEA Safeguards Shortcomings: A Critique," Nuclear Control Institute, September 12,1994. For further discussion of the limitations of IAEA safeguards on plutonium, see Marvin Miller, "Are IAEA Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-Handling Facilities Effective?," Nuclear Control Institute, August 1990.Back to document
6. Mark Hibbs, "IAEA Gives Japan Till 1995 to Account for Holdup Inventory at PFPF Plant," NuclearFuel, October 10, 1994, pp. 1213.Back to document
7. C.W. Forsberg et al., Oak Ridge National Laboratory, "Direct Conversion of Spent Fuel to High-Level-Waste (HLW) Glass," Paper Presented to American Nuclear Society Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 28, 1994.Back to document
8. NAS study, 1994, p. 192.Back to document
9. Plutonium consumption estimate from Richard Holland, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Statement at the Fissile Materials Disposition Project Scoping Meeting, Alexandria, Virginia, October 12, 1994.Back to document
10. "Blix Says IAEA Does Not Dispute Utility of Reactor Grade Pu for Weapons," NuclearFuel, November 12,1990, p. 8. However, Blix made this statement only after the Nuclear Control Institute challenged assertions by IAEA officials earlier that year that reactor-grade plutonium was unsuitable for use in weapons.Back to document
11. U.S. Department of Energy, of fine of the Press Secretary, "Additional Information Concerning Nuclear Weapon Test of Reactor-Grade Plutonium," DOE Fact Sheet released as part of the Openness Initiative, June 27, 1994. The fact that the test occurred and produced a nuclear yield was declassified in 1977. Robert Gillette, "Impure Plutonium Used in '62 A-Test," Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1977, part 1, p.3.Back to document
12. White House Fact Sheet, "Nonproliferation and Export Control Policy," September 27, 1993, p. 2.Back to document
13. NAS study, 1994, p. 149.Back to document
14. U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Managing the Nation's Commercial High-Level Radioactive Waste, March 1985, pp. 68-73.Back to document
15. Thomas Cochran and Christopher Paine, "Proposal for the Disposition of U.S. Plutonium from Weapons," Natural Resources Defense Council, November 16, 1994. Another proposal under author discussion in Germany is to send Russian warhead plutonium to Germany where it would be turned into MOX fuel in a MOX fuel fabrication plant built by Siemens but never operated because of refusal by Hesse state officials to grant an operating license.Back to document
16. Office of Fissile Materials Disposition, U.S. Department of Energy, Long-Term Storage and Disposition of Weapons-Usable Fissile Materials Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement: Implementation Plan, March 1995, p. 36.Back to document
17. Mark Hibbs, "More Contracts Expected to be Dropped in Near Future," NuclearFuel, January 16, 1995, pp.45.Back to document
18. Asia-Pacific Forum on Sea Shipments of Japanese Plutonium: Issues and Concerns, Nuclear Control Institute and Citizens Nuclear Information Center, Tokyo, Japan, October 4-6, 1992.Back to document
19. Section 131(f) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 (92 Stat. 130).Back to document
20. Paul Leventhal and Steven Dolley, "A Japanese Strategic Uranium Reserve: A Safe and Economic Alternative to Plutonium," Science and Global Security, Volume 5, 1994, p. 18.Back to document
21. John Redick, "Argentina and Brazil's New Arrangement for Mutual Inspections and IAEA Safeguards," Nuclear Control Institute, February 1992.Back to document
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