• LETTERS Plutonium disposal Bette Hileman's article, "U.S. eyes plutonium use as power reactor fuel," contained the opinions of several vested interests (C&EN, Dec. 2, 1996, page 6). Hileman has covered this subject before in C&EN, including reports on numerous intellectual studies on the subject, starting with a report by the National Academy of Sciences (C&EN, June 13, 1994, page 12). Thanks to the "theological commitment" of Russians to use plutonium as an energy resource, U.S. taxpayers will not bear aU the burdens of the extravagance of the experts interviewed for this article. If it were up to John Holum, director of the Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, or the Nuclear Control Institute, U.S. taxpayers would buy all the plutonium from the Russians, vitrify and bury it. Taxpayers spent more than $200 billion to produce the 100 tons of weapons-grade plutonium in the U.S. Expecting taxpayers to now buy Russian plutonium for burial would be a great injustice. U.S. taxpayers already are spending several hundred million dollars per year to help with the security of nuclear weapons and the special nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. The xenophobic reactions in the U.S. media, combined with the misinformation campaign by well-heeled antinuclear lobbies, have created an environment of fear. It is unfortunate that the antinuclear effort in the U.S. has become the basis for business development and a cash windfall opportunity. The amount of energy that can be produced from 100 metric tons of excess plutonium (U.S. and Russian combined) is worth more than $60 billion at a current price of 7 cents per kWh. By the time the final agreements are ready for implementation, the cost of electricity will have quadrupled, according to one Department of Energy estimate. The estimated subsidy of $500 million to the nuclear industry to use plutonium as a fuel would be worth the investment. The process undertaken by DOE to arrive at this decision has been expensive, painstaking, and commendable. Assuming that what Hileman reported is the final decision, it is a win for U.S. taxpayers. K. K. S. Pillay Los Alamos, N.M.
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APRIL 7, 1997 C&EN
I frankly do not understand the attitude of those persons and groups opposed to the burning of weapons-grade plutonium in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for nuclear power reactors. Their argument is that it connects the military weapons activities with the civilian power-reactor economy and will cause possible proliferation of plutonium weapons through a fuel economy for the power industry. I wonder whether these people realize that we are currently burning plutonium fuel in every nuclear power reactor in the world today. First, we produce Pu239 from U238 in power reactors every time a U235 atom fissions. Then, when sufficient Pu239 builds up in the nuclear fuel, the plutonium begins to fission also in the multiple chain reactions taking place. At the end of the burn cycle of the nuclear power reactors, there is actually a mixture of U235, U238, and mixed plutonium isotopes present to the extent of a little less than 1% by weight. Although this plutonium is not as good for weapons as the weapons-grade plutonium that we have accumulated in the military, a powerful nuclear weapon can still be fashioned from the plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel. The only thing holding us back in the U.S. from a plutonium economy is the Nonproliferation Act of 1976, which prohibits the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for separation of the plutonium from civilian power-reactor fuel. This has not prevented other countries—particularly France, England, and Russia—from reprocessing spent fuel for separation of plutonium. And, in fact, France has begun to use MOX fuel in its power reactors; Japan has experimented with MOX fuel in anticipation of its use in its power-reactor fuels. Further, the antiplutonium MOX fuel group seems to be in favor of mixing nuclear waste with the plutonium and vitrifying the mix and burying it for geological-age storage. This is fine; however, don't they realize that by using MOX fuel, the nuclear fission product waste will be formed within the spent fuel and is just as effective as mixing the plutonium separately with nuclear waste?
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Furthermore, the weapons-grade plutonium inventory pales with respect to the magnitude of the plutonium inventory from nuclear-power-reactor spent fuel. The U.S. operates more than 100 nuclear power reactors. Every year, 33 tons of spent fuel—or onethird of the 100 tons of fuel inventory in each reactor—is placed into spent fuel storage. Thus, there is a total annual production of 3,300 tons of spent fuel in the U.S. Most of these reactors have been operating since 1970, so that by the end of this century, the U.S. will have accumulated approximately 100,000 tons of spent fuel containing 1,000 tons of plutonium. Former Department of Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary announced that the U.S. produced 100 tons of weaponfrgrade plutonium and that we are planning to either bury or burn 50 tons of plutonium. This is only 5% of the accumulated civilian plutonium. Is it not worth placing this small amount of plutonium in the same condition as the spent fuel by mixing it into MOX fuel? I agree that the danger in weapons material is keeping it in separated, concentrated form. The mistake was made over the past 50 years by both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, which acquired 50,000 nuclear weapons each, when a few hundred each would have been sufficient for mutual assured destruction. I think the argument of the antiplutonium, anti-MOX group is really to stop all nuclear energy. However, even if the U.S. shuts down all of its 100 reactors, the rest of the world, which has 300 reactors, will still keep operating them, especially in those regions of the world where there is a shortage of fossil fuel. Not only has the genie been out of the bottle for some time, but unless another acceptable energy source such as solar (including biomass) or nuclear fusion is developed, nuclear fission will be relied on and the radioactive genie will never be pushed back. In the interim, the main objective for the nations of the world must be to steadfastly unite in preventing rogue nations and terrorists from threatening peace with nuclear weapons. Meyer Steinberg Brookhaven National Laboratory
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