Experts debate fate of plutonium

WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- The large stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium in the United States and Russia represent an enormous security challenge that is not being adequately addressed by either country, according to think tank analysts who specialize in nuclear non-proliferation issues.

"There is general agreement that we should be doing plutonium disposition," Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the non-proliferation project at the liberal-leaning Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told United Press International. "We have more plutonium than we would ever need, and this stuff is a huge security risk."

The United States is currently spearheading a campaign to turn 68 metric tons of American and Russian weapons-grade plutonium -- 34 tons from each nation -- into fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, but the material is only a small portion of the plutonium stockpiled in both countries. The Russian plutonium is a matter of particular concern because much of it is inadequately secured and has long been considered a possible source of nuclear material for terrorists groups seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

It is more difficult to develop a weapon with plutonium than with uranium, a much more commonly used fuel for nuclear reactors. However, plutonium is capable of producing a much larger nuclear blast and so might more desirable to terrorists. Wolfsthal stressed that this problem must be adequately addressed.

"This is top order magnitude stuff," he said. "Small amounts of this material can destroy an entire city. By small amounts I mean levels you can hold in your hand, and there are rooms and rooms of this stuff. Getting it secure it is not a 'nice to have,' it is a 'must have.'"

The United States and Russia agreed to the plutonium the reprocessing plan during the last year of the Clinton administration. However, Wolfsthal and other nuclear non-proliferation experts say the effort would actually heighten security risks because the material would be transported to other facilities for processing and then be distributed when sold afterward.

In addition, critics say the plan is not economically viable because the resulting mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, is far more expensive than uranium fuel and is less attractive for use in commercial nuclear reactors than uranium. Uranium remains the material most commonly used to fuel reactors around the world despite some overseas efforts to move to the use of plutonium, and is currently the only fuel used in American nuclear power plants. MOX production is largely government subsidized around the world.

On Wednesday at a panel discussion on the reprocessing plan at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said the issue has not received the attention it deserves, given the security risks involved.

"It has been almost impossible to have dedicated hearings in our legislative system on this issue," said Sokolski, whose group co-sponsored the AEI forum. "It is something that our government has not taken on as a matter of real public debate."

The idea of using plutonium to fuel reactors in the United States was abandoned during the Ford administration when officials decided that the nuclear proliferation risks outweighed any economic benefits that might gained.

Victor Gilinsky, a senior associate of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that plutonium reprocessing it is not a good method of securing the material.

"Now we know (the use of plutonium as nuclear reactor fuel) is not only dangerous but also grossly uneconomic," Gilinsky said at the AEI forum. "We are in a situation where there isn't really any good answer. But I think reclaiming plutonium for nuclear reactors is a particularly bad answer," he said. "It isn't a good idea considering the risk of theft (during transportation of the material for processing) and (the risk of) successful hostile use of this explosive. The overall effect of this in my mind is to undermine long standing U.S. non-proliferation policy."

Gilinsky and Wolfsthal agreed that it would be safer to continue storing the plutonium where it is currently held, and to make it unsuitable for weapons production by mixing it on-site with radioactive waste. Wolfsthal said this competing idea was originally supposed to be used as a complement to the reprocessing plan, but was abandoned by the Bush administration. Nevertheless, many experts see it as a superior option because it would require only an increase of security at sites where such material is already held, and would not entail the transportation risks of the other plan.

Richard Garwin, director of science and technology policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and chair of the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board for the U.S. State Department, said at the forum that this competing option must be conducted in tandem with the reprocessing plan to ensure that all the excess Russian plutonium is secured.

Proponents of the reprocessing plan counter that it is debatable whether the waste-mixing storage plan is safer, because the plutonium would remain retrievable through further processing. Ambassador Michael Guhin, fissile negotiator for the U.S. Department of State and the lead Bush administration official handling negotiations with the Russians over the issue, said at the forum that the process of turning the material into spent fuel is tightly controlled and has been proven effective. He added that, as a practical concern, the waste storage method is a "non-starter" with Russia.

"I am not going to argue that this (reprocessing) program isn't risk free: there is no such thing as a risk-free program," said Guhin. "Plutonium traveling between facilities has some risks, but I do believe this program has far fewer risks than the only alternative."

American taxpayers would also have to substantially underwrite the construction of the Russian and American processing facilities needed to complete the plan. The cost for construction of the Russian plant alone is estimated to be $1 billion. The U.S. government has already pledged $400 million to that cost, with the rest of the cost expected to be picked up by other Group of Eight most industrialized nations.

Guhin said the greatest concern is whether there is adequate control over the excess plutonium in the Russian nuclear stockpile.

"The course we are on seems to this administration after careful revue, seemed to the previous administration after careful revue, and seems to nearly all the G8 countries after their own review, the safest and most prudent course to pursue now and in the long run," said Guhin.

Asked to clarify Guhin's statement, a State Department official made it clear that the official position is that if the current program is abandoned, it will mean the loss of the stringent controls established in the 2000 agreement on the future use of the Russian plutonium.

Henry Rowen, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and the former assistant secretary of defense for international security in the administration of George W.H. Bush, said at the forum that this type of thinking ignores the economic impacts the plan would have.

"This has to have (economic) consequences if facilities are built and people get into this," said Rowen. "This is (also) what we ought to be talking about, not only the 68 tons (of plutonium)."