Opposition To DOE Proposal To Use Plutonium For Reactor Fuel

[Lisa Marina Brooks <lbrooks@essential.org>]

  ******* CRITICAL MASS ENERGY PROJECT *******
  Nuclear Power Reactor Fuel
  GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL
  INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
  MILITARY PRODUCTION NETWORK
  NUCLEAR CONTROL INSTITUTE
  NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE
  PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
  PUBLIC CITIZEN
  SAFE ENERGY COMMUNICATION COUNCIL  
  U.S. PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP
  
  
  For Immediate Release:   	Contact:
  Monday, December 9, 1996  	Jim Adams (202) 483-8491
  			        Paul Leventhal (202) 822-8444
  
  Broad Opposition To DOE Proposal To Use Weapons Plutonium For Commercial
  Nuclear Power Reactor Fuel
  
   Washington, D.C. - A growing coalition of national, international and
  grassroots groups today announced vigorous opposition to a plan by the
  U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that could lead to the use of
  approximately 50 tons of plutonium from nuclear bombs as fuel in U.S.
  commercial nuclear reactors.  The DOE today released a Programmatic
  Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on plutonium disposition that
  advocates investigating two options - use as fuel or immobilize in glass
  for permanent storage of excess military plutonium.
  
   One of the options involves combining plutonium and uranium into
  mixed-oxide(MOX) fuel pellets for use in nuclear power reactors.  The
  other is to vitrify (encapsulate in glass) plutonium into a waste form.
  The pursuit of the MOX option would undermine a 20-year United States
  policy to avoid the civilian use of plutonium.  In addition, if a MOX
  fabrication plant were in operation, there would be renewed pressure for
  the DOE to increase the reprocessing of irradiated (spent) fuel to isolate
  plutonium which could then be used as MOX.  
  
   "This is a stunning reversal of the prudent foundation of U.S.
  nonproliferation policy designed to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands
  of terrorists and rogue states," said Jim Adams, Senior Analyst for the
  Safe Energy Communication Council.  "Opposed by many scientists, experts
  and the public, developing the MOX option would open a dangerous Pandora's
  box," he concluded.
  
   The PEIS failed to formally consider the economic and nonproliferation
  factors weighing against the use of MOX.  These issues were discussed in
  other documents that were not subject to the strict standards required by
  the National Environmental Policy Act.  "It is important that Secretary of
  Energy Hazel O'Leary weigh the cost and nonproliferation factors that were
  kept out of the PEIS before arriving at a final decision," noted Paul
  Leventhal, President of the Nuclear Control Institute.  "Plutonium fuel in
  commercial reactors makes no sense from a cost standpoint and is downright
  dangerous from a proliferation standpoint.  Vitrification makes sense from
  both perspectives and should be her first choice," concluded Mr. 
  Leventhal.
  
   The pursuit of the MOX option will send the wrong signal to other
  countries about a change in the U.S. position on nuclear fuel policy.
  "Using the MOX fuel option for plutonium disposition will take longer, be
  more expensive, and encourage world-wide use of plutonium, a key component
  of nuclear weapons," stated Maureen Eldredge, Program Director for the
  Military Production Network, a coalition of grassroots organizations.
  "There is no good rationale for continuing down this dangerous path.  If
  this is an example of how the U.S. shows strong leadership on
  international security issues, we are in big trouble."
  
   "Greenpeace opposes any recommendation by the DOE to use plutonium as
  nuclear fuel.  The decision to use MOX is a wrong-headed and risky
  reversal of U.S. nonproliferation policy and is being made to the
  satisfaction of the plutonium industry in Russia, France, Britain, and
  Japan," said Tom Clements, a spokesman for Greenpeace International.  "We
  will vigorously work to oppose the use of plutonium fuel and promote its
  treatment as nuclear waste,"  he concluded.  Bill Magavern, the Director
  of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project, declared, "Citizens
  groups across the country have stopped previous attempts to use plutonium
  as a reactor fuel and we will fight this proposal as long as a better
  alternative exists - and immobilization is a better alternative."
  
   Furthermore, the U.S. is worried about the intention of Russian leaders
  who are leaning towards the development of a MOX industry to deal with
  surplus plutonium from the dismantlement of nuclear weapons.  "The most
  important result of a decision to pursue a MOX option will be to encourage
  Russia to produce more weapons-usable plutonium from used nuclear reactor
  fuel.  It will help create a surreal cycle by which Russia will make spent
  fuel out of weapons plutonium only to extract more plutonium out of the
  reactor spent fuel, thereby perpetuating the threat of theft and
  diversion," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for
  Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland.
  
   Another major concern for coalition members is the impact of the DOE 
  providing significant subsidies to the nuclear power industry to 
  facilitate the use of MOX in commercial reactors.  "This smells like
  polluter pork to me," said Anna Aurilio, a staff scientist with the U.S.
  Public Interest Research Group.  "It is scary that utility executives
  would be bribed to keep operating their aging, uneconomic reactors," she
  added.
  
   "We have major problems in the U.S. with nuclear power wastes, and now
  DOE is going to spend hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars to
  subsidize failing, uneconomic reactors, which will generate wastes more
  dangerous and complicated than what we have today," declared Mary Olson, a
  spokesperson for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.  "The
  concerns of citizens in reactor communities, who will be directly affected
  by the use of MOX fuel, did not influence the development of this policy,
  but they will have a lot to say about whether it will be implemented," she
  concluded.
  
   "Commercial use of plutonium poses significant radiological hazards to
  facility workers and highly radioactive waste streams which imperil the
  surrounding environment and for which there are no viable waste management
  solution.  The better approach would be to convert the plutonium into
  glassified waste for permanent underground disposal,"  concluded Timothy
  Takaro, a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
  
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