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A quarterly newsletter for Sierrans interested in problems posed by the escalating accumulation of nuclear waste. Compiled, condensed, and edited by Ellen Winchester for the Sierra Club National Nuclear Waste Task Force, tel. 850-576-0954.
MOBILE CHERNOBYL IS DELAYED IN SENATE THANKS TO UNLIKELY ALLIES: President Clinton, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and tobacco. They combined to kill a Senate motion that, if passed, could have led to the temporary storage of high-level radioactive waste at the Nevada Test Site. Only 56 senators voted for a motion to require a vote on the waste issue--four short of the 60 votes needed to halt a filibuster. It was also 11 shy of the margin needed to override a presidential veto. This is the third consecutive year of failure for a bill requiring Nevada to accept the nation's nuclear waste on an interim basis until a permanent site is found. The most recent failure occurred in part because an anti-tobacco bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, had the full attention of the Senate. That, coupled with President Clinton's promise to veto any bill on temporary storage of nuclear waste and Gingrich's decision to withhold action on such legislation, was enough to sway the Senate. However, the bill is sure to come back next year according to a nuclear industry spokesman. Asked about that, Nevada Senator Reid replied, "Wait until we get through this year." (Las Vegas Sun, 5/3/98) JUNE 19 OPENING OF WIPP DELAYED BECAUSE OPERATORS FAILED TO PROVE the plutonium contaminated material the site was prepared to receive is not free of other contaminants such as solvents and lead. Although EPA and DOE approved DOE's 100,000 [sic] page application to open the plant, a state permit for "mixed waste" cannot be issued until a public comment period expires in August. The goal for the repository, carved out of a thick salt formation below the desert near Carlsbad, NM, is to keep hundreds of thousands of barrels of radioactive waste from 23 nuclear weapons sites safely sealed away from the environment for l0,000 of the hundreds of thousands of years the plutonium in the wastes will remain dangerously radioactive. Among other reasons for doubting the security of the site throughout millenia, opponents have pointed to the current existence of 200 oil wells within two miles of it. (Tallahassee Democrat 6/13/98 and New York Times, 5/14/98) LOUISIANA ENERGY SERVICES DROPS PLAN TO BUILD URANIUM ENRICHMENT PLANT in northern Louisiana near the town of Homer. LES was a consortium led by the European enrichment firm URENCO. Other partners included subsidiaries of Duke Power, Northern States Power and Fluor Daniel. Despite several partial reversals by the NRC Commissioners of earlier Licensing Board denials, LES apparently decided the odds of their receiving a license were growing slim. Most recently, the Commissioners partially reversed the landmark decision denying a license on environmental justice grounds. (Michael Mariott, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, 4/98) US DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR RESCINDS EVICTION NOTICE FOR INDIAN CAMP at proposed Ward Valley nuclear dump site after negotiations between leaders of five tribes and Kevin Gover, Asst. Secretary for Indian Affairs. The historic action began on Feb. 12th when hundreds of tribal members and supporters occupied "ground zero" the day before the Interior Department had hoped to secure the area against controversial test drilling. After standing firm for 113 days, the five tribes will now remove security roadblocks and call off the "red alert." A hearing in US District Court will be held in Washington on June 17 on a lawsuit backed by California Governor Pete Wilson to force the US Dept. of Interior to transfer the Ward Valley land to the state. However, the Indian Nation will have an ongoing spiritual vigil and presence at "ground zero" until the dump is stopped once and for all. (South and Meso American Indian Rights Center) BRITISH CLOSE CONTROVERSIAL NUCLEAR PLANT AT ASTRONOMICAL COST. Commercial and safety issues have led to a shutdown of the pioneering fast-breeder reactor at Dounreay on the northern coast of Scotland. PM Tony Blair has been advised that the job will take a century and cost about a billion pounds (US $l.65 billion). Meanwhile, Norway with support from Sweden and the Irish Republic is set to demand an immediate halt to all nuclear operations at Dounreay and at a much larger reprocessing complex at Sellafield, opposite the Irish coast, because of a rising threat of polluting the North Sea. Blair's decision came three weeks after he agreed to a request from President Clinton that the Dounreay plant reprocess about 10 pounds of fissile material from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Attempts to generate electricity at Dounreay ended in mid-1990's, but the facility is still under contract to reprocess material from several countries, work that will have to be completed, including the fuel from Georgia. (Christian Science Monitor, 6/8/98) NUCLEAR FREE NEW ENGLAND CAMPAIGN MOVES INTO HIGH GEAR TO EDUCATE people throughout New England about the problems caused by the region's nuclear power reactors and promote the readily available, sustainable alternatives to them, and teach, inspire, and empower people to actively oppose the region's nuclear industry. (The Nuclear Monitor, April 1998) CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY CALLS FOR MORE STRINGENT STANDARDS to transport HLW and spent fuel shipments through the state. Its May 26 legislation requires cask manufacturers to provide full-scale physical cask testing if a federal agency doesn't test and requires shippers to cover the expenses for state and local government agencies involved in shipping, testing, and extra protection measures for rail and truck shipments through the state. The bill has been sent to the California Senate. (Brad Morse, Alliance for Nuclear Accountabiity, 6/8/98) SUPREME COURT REJECTS ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL'S ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE any further federal liability for its past operation of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado. The Court let stand rulings that allow the government to pursue a false-claims lawsuit against Rockwell. In 1992 the company paid an $18.5 million fine after pleading guilty to a hazardous-waste and clean-water violations at Rocky Flats, the largest hazardous-waste fine in history. (Ross Vincent, Chair, Sierra Club Environmental Quality Team) US DISMAY OVER INDIAN AND PAKISTANI NUCLEAR TESTS MASKS LAWRENCE LIVERMORE subcritical testing in the Stockpile Stewardship Program, swollen armaments budgets and Congressional failure, organized by Senator Helms, to pass the Comprehensive Test Ban. To make matters worse, to pass it, President Clinton may be forced to agree to weaken the antiballistic missile treaty based on the US Russian agreement reached in March 1997. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 1998; EW) BUSINESS SEES WEALTH IN OAK RIDGE CLEAN-UP OPPORTUNITIES. They vary from the small nuclear reactor being surrounded with a cancer treatment center to building K-25, the original 4.4 million square foot uranium enrichment building, to be cleaned up and renamed the East Tennessee Technology Park. British Nuclear Fuels, which has been decontaminating waste for commercial nuclear plants in the United States for three years, calculates that at least l30,000 tons of copper, nickel and other metals can be salvaged in Oak Ridge. DOE budget cuts affecting all its weapons plants are spurring sales. (New York Times, 5/20/98) COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FOR RENT AT THE NEVADA TEST SITE! "In an effort to generate money … the Government has begun to transform parts of this base … into a business park of sorts … with the unusual lures of restricted access and absence of neighbors who, for example, might complain about the use of toxic chemicals." (Verne G. Kopytoff, New York Times, Real Estate Section, 6/21/98) EPA WANTS TO PUMP OUT PU CONTAMINATED LANDFILL UNDER FORMER LOWRY BOMBING RANGE, run it through Denver's sewage-treatment plant, and discharge the treated water into the South Platte River. Leftover sludge would be spread onto Colorado wheat fields. Studies have disagreed over ten years about the amount of Pu under the land fill, about current plans to monitor the Lowry groundwater as it travels through the elaborate sewage treatment process, the wisdom of recycling toxic waste, with or without plutonium, and the basic solution -- to dilute the toxicity in a sea of general wastewater. (Christian Science Monitor, 6/10/98) NEW YORK STATE AND DOE ARGUE OVER RESPONSIBILITY FOR WEST VALLEY CLEANUP. At issue are highly radioactive parts of a process building not used by DOE for its vitrification project; an old lagoon that DOE filled in with contaminated material from another part of the site; an underground plume of radioactive water that has been draining into the watershed and moved into an adjacent landfill; and one part of an NRC burial ground used by DOE for project wastes. (The Coalition Crier, 6/98) DOE CALLS OFF AN AERIAL SEARCH FOR 19 MISSING TUBES OF RADIOACTIVE CESIUM in North Carolina. The material was stolen from Moses Cone Hospital before a March 4 inventory. The airborne surveillance turned up no significant elevations of radiation in the city. Department of Energy officials say that either the material is no longer in Greensboro or it is well protected. The FBI and the North Carolina Division of Radiation Protection will continue ground surveillance with radiation-detecting equipment. (UPI News Briefs, 3/26) WASHINGTON GOVERNOR GARY LOCKE WILL SUE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over its failure to comply with a timetable to clean up the heavily polluted Hanford nuclear reservation. Locke gave formal 60-day notice of the state's intent to sue the Department of Energy for failing to pump out 149 aging underground tanks that hold nearly 6 million gallons of radioactive waste. At least 70 of the tanks have leaked 1 million gallons of radioactive waste into the ground near the Columbia River. CHEM NUCLEAR PLAN TO SAVE BARNWELL WOULD ALLOW UTILITIES TO BUY REMAINING SPACE, 4-5 million cubic feet of it. Regan Voit, Chem Nuclear's CEO, has warned that Barnwell must receive more waste, and income, or it may close. His solution: allow utilities to purchase up to 4-5 million cubic feet of the remaining space now and guarantee shipment of enough waste to fill the space over the next 25 years. A Trust Fund would be established to pay South Carolina $1 billion at the end of that time, and the state would receive $75 million per year for educational purposes in the interim. A South Carolina official warns that access to Barnwell is subject to state legislative approvals and cannot be guaranteed at this time. (Judith Johnsrud, Sierra Club Nuclear Waste Task Force, 6/19/98) ENVIROCARE OF UTAH, THE ONLY US PRIVATELY OWNED RADWASTE DUMP, has since 1994 been the exclusive commercial disposal service for nearly all the US government's low level radioactive waste. Located on a salty desert plain 80 miles west of Salt Lake city, the dump contains mostly contaminated soil and construction materials from Cold War-era factories and uranium processing facilities as well as tailings from uranium mines. The dump has given the federal government a way to get rid of mountains of low-level radioactive debris without breaking budgets or triggering lawsuits from states and communities near contaminated sites around the country. Scandal has arisen, however, over the adequacy of the state's response to the dump's history of safety violations and payments made to the state regulator responsible for the dump's license and safety. Meanwhile attention has been focused on the government's near dependence on a single, private dump. (Washington Post Weekly Edition, 4/13/98) RESIDENTS OPPOSE NUKE WASTE SITE ON UTAH INDIAN RESERVATION. Private Fuel Storage, comprised of eight electric utilities -- wants to build a temporary storage facility for high level waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation but has met with adamant opposition from the state and some Goshutes. Presenters at the first public hearing on the proposal raised concerns about the seismic stability of the area, fire risk, terrorist defenses, emergency management plans, water and wildlife management, and transportation safety . (Las Vegas Sun 6/3/98) RADWASTE SHIPMENTS FROM FERNALD, OHIO, TO NEVADA COULD RESUME AS EARLY AS 6/98. Shipments from New York State have been suspended since 12/97 when a truck driver near Kingman, AZ, discovered contaminated liquid leaking from his trailer. A 2/98 DOE report later found that 11 waste containers had failed in the past year. Fluor Daniel Fernald, the contractor managing the cleanup, says changes ordered by DOE, including the redesign of waste containers and safety monitoring improvements are nearly complete. Fernald officials are feeling pressure from residents in the Cincinnati area to resume the shipments and reduce the amount of low-level waste at the site. (Greenwire,4/16/98) SENATE CLEARS HOUSE PASSED LEGISLATION APPROVING TEXAS, VERMONT AND MAINE COMPACT for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. Amendments by Senators Olympia Snow and Paul Wellstone were added. The latter sought to make it easier for residents near the proposed radwaste storage site in Sierra Blanca, Texas, to oppose the facility. (Greenwire, 3/25) COURT ALLOWS DOE TO EXEMPT PRIVATE LLRW DISPOSAL SITES FROM NRC LICENSING. The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court ruled in May that DOE has the authority under the Atomic Energy Act to regulate a private waste disposal site, such as the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in west Texas. If DOE does not exercise such control, then NRC or Agreement States retain regulatory power over commercial disposal sites. This authority harkens back to an exemption power of the former Atomic Energy Commission, when the AEC was both promoter and regulator of all nuclear energy activities. WCS expects to appeal the decision. (Judith Johnsrud, Sierra Club Nuclear Waste Task Force, 6/19/98) ARE LLRW COMPACTS DEAD OR ALIVE? BOTH SAY STATE REGULATORS speaking at the Radioactive Exchange Publications LLRW Decisionmakers' Forum in mid-June. Ohio has stopped its siting process; Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania have either formally or informally suspended their search. State regulators fear that ending the Compact system would cause states to lose their exemption from the Interstate Commerce Clause that allows Compacts to exclude generated out-of-compact wastes. They worry that possible closure of Chem Nuclear's Barnwell site might leave them with no available disposal. (Judith Johnsrud, Sierra Club Nuclear Waste Task Force, 6/19/98) WORKERS EXPOSED TO RADIATION DURING DECADES OF NUCLEAR TESTING at Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory have an increased risk of dying from cancer according to a UCLA report. The UCLA study of 4,563 past and present Rocketdyne employees was launched nearly five years ago after concern about radiation work at the lab prompted neighbors and environmentalists to push for a study. (Los Angeles Times,9/12/97) ATOMIC AUDIT, new book edited by Stephen I. Schwartz, tells costs of U.S. nuclear weapons since 1940. From Brookings Institution, June 1998, 500 pp. $24.95 paperback. Order online or telephone 1-800-275-1447. RECYCLE OF RADIOACTIVE SCRAP METAL EXPANDING. EPA has evidently decided not to develop a public dose standard for recycle and reuse of radioactively-contaminated scrap metal in consumer products, but NRC is now considering a Rulemaking. Look for a draft NRC Advance Notice of Rulemaking in the Federal Register this summer -- and comment on it. Although the nuclear navy recently rejected "hot" cooking pots, the nuclear industry's interest in recycling scrap metal and other radioactive wastes into consumer products is growing. As waste disposal costs continue to rise, more "triage treatment" technologies are emerging under the guise of "beneficial uses." Favored techniques for "burial avoidance" include incineration, new thermal methods, steam reforming, ultra compaction, "Safglas" (TM) vitrification, and other forms of "decontamination for free release." British Nuclear Fuels, Inc., is increasing its role in the US treatment business. (Judith Johnsrud, Sierra Club Nuclear Waste Task Force, 6/19/98) RESEARCHERS FIND URANIUM IN GULF WAR VETERANS WITH DEPLETED URANIUM SHRAPNEL IN THEIR BODIES. They have uranium in their semen, abnormal hormones and a possible decrease in problem solving ability. The findings appear to contradict Pentagon claims that exposure to radioactive ammunition "is not medically significant." (Albuquerque Journal, 6/19/98) IN SITU URANIUM MINE THREATENS NAVAJO COMMUNITIES. Hydro Resources, Inc. (HRI) proposes to mine for uranium via in situ technology, frightening the residents with the prospect of a uranium mine and processing plant next to their homes--one that may destroy the sole source of drinking water for more than 10,000 Native Americans. (Enviro Action, National Wildlife Federation, May 1998) CALIFORNIA DEMANDS REVIEW OF PLAN TO IMPORT RESEARCH REACTOR SPENT FUEL from seven Asian countries through the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The state Coastal Commission warned that the plan poses "significant risks to California's coastal and marine resources." At issue is the DOE plan to transport spent fuel by ship to the Concord facility and then by train to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. A federal judge approved the plan in 3/98, but the Commission called for a more detailed analysis of an accident's possible impacts on marine resources. (Contra Costa Times, 6/5/98) LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY (LILCO) COST RATEPAYERS $5.5 billion before bowing out. Builder of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, which was dismantled because the state decided it would be impossible to evacuate the area during an accident, LILCO's pricey decision makers cost the one million rate payers about $2,000 each. Richard M Kessel, chairman of the Long Island Power Authority, said rates should now fall because dividends will no longer be paid and because financing will be done through tax-free bonds. He also said, "If there are people out there who somehow want justice, they're not going to get it. The people who created this mess are long gone. (New York Times, 6/14/98) SOUTH CAROLINIANS CAMPAIGN FOR SRS JOBS CONVERTING PU INTO FUEL. Officials from five area chambers of commerce and South Carolina's Tri-County Alliance have launched a mail campaign to persuade DOE to send the jobs their way. Fred Davison, chairman of the citizens' group said, "SRS produced nearly half of America's inventory of bomb plutonium, so it should be the natural choice when it comes to disposing of the dangerous material." Several hundred construction jobs, 700 permanent positions and hundreds of millions in project dollars would come to SRS if DOE decides to send the plant 50 tons of leftover bomb plutonium. SRS is competing against federal facilities in Texas, Idaho, and Washington for a mission which would convert two thirds of the plutonium into fuel for power reactors and encase the remainder in glass. (AP-3/27/98) DON MONIAC OF SERIOUS TEXANS AGAINST NUCLEAR DUMPING, writes, "STAND is opposed to all and any plutonium processing at Pantex. The site is too small, there is no experience with Pu processing, it is located above the Ogallala aquifer and within a productive agricultural region. There would be two Category I facilities within l.5 miles of residences. This position also applies to vitrification." 437 NUCLEAR PLANTS WERE OPERATING WORLDWIDE AS OF 4/8/98 according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Reuters, 5/9/98) RUSSIA PLANS SALE OF REACTOR TO INDIA DESPITE RECENT NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS. An agreement to sell India two l,000-megawatt reactors for $1 billion each was signed in 1988 but postponed following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The plants will be located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and will be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Russia will supply enriched uranium for the lifetime of the proposed lightwater reactor according to an Indian official. (Tallahassee Democrat, 6/15/98) IS MILLSTONE FINALLY OFF CONNECTICUT'S NECK? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow Connecticut's Millstone nuclear power plant to start producing power again, more than two years after it was shut down for licensing violations. The Commission said June 15 that it would allow Unit 3 to start generating electricity again once NRC staffers sign off on some final technical details. The commission's decision came despite concerns from Millstone's neighbors and nuclear watchdogs that the utility has not yet proven it can run the plant safely and address workers' concerns about safety in the future. (Tallahassee Democrat, 6/16/98) CONSTRUCTION ON TURKEY'S FIRST NUCLEAR REACTOR SHOULD BEGIN SOON, a Turkish energy official said at a May 25 press conference. Atomic Energy of Canada, which is marketing its CANDU reactors, is believed to have the lead on the bid, but two other consortia--one composed of Siemens and Framatome and the other of Westinghouse and Mitsubishi--are also in the running. On May 17 an influential retired Turkish general said on national TV that the the Indian and Pakistani tests mean "Turkey must now develop its own nuclear policy." (The Nuclear Monitor, 6/16/98) THE CANADIAN "CANDU" PRODUCES THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF PLUTONIUM per unit of power of any commercial reactor. Using natural uranium fuel and heavy water as a neutron moderator, it also produces the highest amount of tritium, an essential ingredient in hydrogen bombs. Its "on line" fueling system allows the reactor to be re-fueled without a shutdown. Thus it has the highest risk of military misuse and nuclear weapons proliferation of all reactors sold commercially on the world market. India's first atomic bomb used plutonium produced in a CANDU prototype reactor which was copied to make plutonium. CANDUs have been sold to Pakistan, Argentina, Romania, South Korea, and China (a nuclear weapons state). (The Ottawa Citizen) JAPAN SHIFTS FAST BREEDER POLICY, PLANS TO WORK WITH FRANCE AND RUSSIA on developing a way to reduce radioactive waste by recycling it in the fuel cores of fast breeder reactors. (Tom Clements, Nuke-Waste List, April 17, 1998) IAEA FIGURES CONFIRM NATIONS' FAILURE TO CONTROL PU PROLIFERATION. The stockpile of weapon-usable plutonium continues to grow dramatically and controls to stem such growth are virtually non-existent. The "civil" plutonium stockpile shows that the amount of Pu in Britain, France and Japan, all countries engaged in the reprocessing of spent commercial fuel, grew to a shocking 141 metric tons as of Dec. 31, 1996. (Greenpeace, 5/8/98) SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE WANTS RUSSIA TO MATCH PLUTONIUM CUTS. "The Clinton Administration is on a path to fabricate into mixed-oxide fuel three tons of U.S. weapons plutonium per year and is tentatively working to aid Russia to fabricate 1.3 tons per year into mixed oxide fuel (MOX)," said Senator Pete Domenici, chair of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee. He continued, "Unless changes are made, the United States would be permitting 'unequal disarmament.' We have to ensure that Russia destroys at least as much weapons plutonium as we do because they have many times as much as we do." (Reuters, 6/02/98) NEW LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB REPORT, "DISPOSING OF WEAPONS GRADE PLUTONIUM." By its endorsing the MOX option it reads as an effort not only to control proliferation but also to revitalize the US reactor industry, to encourage Russian movement into the international plutonium market, and to distract attention from the critical near-term problem of decreasing plutonium proliferation risks. Instead, the program should be reconfigured to focus primarily on developing a fast-track international program for pit dismantlement and safeguards, and it should be integrated with the much slower and less time-urgent plutonium vitrification program. (Paul Craig, Nuke-Waste List, 6/20/98) GOVERNOR OF FUKUI, JAPAN, YUKIO KURITA, HAS GIVEN PRELIMINARY APPROVAL for Kansai Electric Power Co. plan to burn a uranium-plutonium mixture (MOX) at two reactors in the prefecture. The plant is located on the Sea of Japan coast. Final approval from the central government is expected to take about 10 months. The Federation of Electric Power Companies has a plan for MOX fuel to be used at 16 - 18 reactors in 11 companies by 2010. Utilizing the plutonium taken from spent nuclear fuel is a key part of Japan's nuclear recycling program, including the development of fast breeder reactors. (Greenpeace, 5/7/98) NOTES FROM DOE MAY 12 IMMOBILIZATION CONFERENCE
239 NORTH AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS SIGNED INTERNATIONAL NIX MOX statement by March 16, the International Nix Mox Action Day. A coalition of safe energy, environmental, and citizen action groups in the US and Canada organized a Mock Mox Transport that traveled nearly 1,000 km and alerted the public and the media to DOE's impending transport of MOX fuel from Los Alamos Nuclear Labs in New Mexico to the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory in Ontario, Canada. In Russia activists in some 30 cities (from the Baltic Sea region to Kamchatka and the Far East) organized events to stop MOX fuel initiatives by the nuclear industry. (The Nuclear Monitor, April 1998) JACK WELCH STATES GE WILL NOT BE INVOLVED IN MOX IN ANY WAY, shape or form. At the annual General Electric Co. stockholders meeting Chairman Welch stated that GE has withdrawn from participation in the previouly considered MOX-consortium. (Pat Birnie, Nuke-Waste List, 4/22/98) THE RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT MARCH 27 CLOSED DOWN a US DOE funded plutonium site for environmental violations. The site near the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant near Chelyabinsk is intended to be an interim storage faciity for plutonium from nuclear warheads. Environmental activists in the region believe the site will be used for Russia's MOX fuel program, which would use plutonium from warheads as fuel for commercial power reactors. US DOE is attempting to embark on a similar program in the US, partly with the argument that because Russia wants to use MOX, so must the US. (Michael Mariott, NIRS, 4/1/98). RUSSIA, GERMANY AND FRANCE AGREE TO COOPERATE IN TURNING WEAPONS GRADE PU INTO MOX. Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's atomic energy minister, said three military reactors are still producing weapons-grade Pu, but the US has promised aid to end the production in 2000, when power plants will be able to switch to MOX. Planning is also underway for a new reactor at Russia's Beloyarsk power plant designed especially to burn MOX. Both Russian and Western environmentalists have warned that taking plutonium out of military control and putting it into civilian hands could cause security problems. Tom Clements, Greenpeace, 6/2/98) THORIUM IN REACTORS, REVIVAL OF AN OLD IDEA? In "Finding a Formula to Light the World but Guard the Bomb" Matthew L. Wald (New York Times, 6/02/98) reports that a small Washington DC area company is pushing the idea of blending non-fissile thorium with fissile U-235 or surplus weapons plutonium in electric power reactors, instead of blending non-fissile U-238. This would obviate the production of plutonium Pu-239, a product of neutron reaction with U-238. Not emphasized in the Times, however, is the fact that thorium is pure Th-232 which picks up neutrons to become fissile U-233. Fifty years ago breeder reactor engineers considered both thorium and uranium reactor designs as possible breeders of fissile products, but they rejected the thorium option as economically unattractive. The nuclear weapons engineers also decided to focus on U-235 and Pu-239 for fission bombs, even though in principle U-233 should also work. Now, if the object is to run power reactors that would prevent the formation of any fissile isotopes for weapons, it is not clear what advantage thorium reactors would have. (EW) Up to Top |
