Nuclear reprocessing and plutonium

CND Briefing on Priority Campaign 4

Despite being in office since 1997, the Labour Government has still to formulate a policy on the thorny issue of the management of nuclear waste and plutonium. It has supported British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) dogged determination to stay in the reprocessing business despite bitter opposition at home, in Europe and worldwide.

In October 2001, after five public consultations involving considerable opposition, BNFL was granted a full operating licence for the Sellafield Mixed Oxide (MOX) Plant to fabricate and sell plutonium fuel. CND made submissions to each of them and opposed MOX based on our concerns about the plant's potential contribution to nuclear proliferation. Meanwhile, the company continues, via the reprocessing of spent reactor fuel, to add to the civil plutonium stockpile at Sellafield, which could amount to 100 tonnes by the end of the decade.

Over three tonnes of military plutonium is either stored at Aldermaston or is in the core of 200 Trident warheads. Despite this being approximately three times as much as required, the Ministry of Defence has no plans to reduce its stocks and place more plutonium under international safeguards, administered by the United Nations body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The MoD also has 22 tonnes of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) which is either in store, in the reactors of nuclear submarines or in Trident warheads.

CND's campaign in the late eighties and early nineties to prevent the start-up of BNFL's THORP reprocessing plant was based on the fact that the plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel adds to the world stockpile of this dangerous material. The more there is in the world, the greater the danger that some will be diverted into a nuclear weapons programme. Any state with its own reprocessing facilities or with a reprocessing contract with BNFL or COGEMA, its French equivalent, is in a position to do this.

In addition there is the ever-present danger of plutonium falling into the hands of a terrorist or sub-national group with the expertise to make a crude nuclear device or a ‘dirty bomb’ (dispersal of radioactive materials via a conventional explosion). The wider availability of plutonium and its worldwide transportation offers greater opportunities for diversion and puts the entire international safeguards regime under increased stress.

The proponents of reprocessing argued that plutonium is a fuel asset which would provide unlimited supplies of energy at minimal environmental impact as non-renewable sources diminish. Indeed, more plutonium fuel would be created than was burnt up as it produces energy in the fast breeder reactor. Unfortunately for the nuclear junkies, the dream of the continuous fix with constantly replenishing supplies of high quality plutonium has been extinguished as support for fast breeder programmes has been progressively withdrawn, most recently in Japan and France, as the technology proved unworkable.

Despite the growing realisation that THORP was indeed the white elephant that its detractors dubbed it, BNFL was permitted to open the plant in September 1993 and was granted a full operating licence in August 1997. BNFL's celebrations were understandable but proved to be short lived as the opposition gathered strength, the arguments gained credibility and the unwanted plutonium stockpiles grew exponentially.

Meanwhile, even greater problems were piling up at the 'backend' (accumulated waste material) of the nuclear industry. John Gummer's parting shot as Conservative Environment Minister in 1997 was to denounce NIREX, the Government's own nuclear waste management agency, and turn down its appeal to construct an under-ground laboratory (Rock Characterisation Facility) near Sellafield to test the strata's suitability for the long term storage of nuclear waste. Fifty years of civil and military nuclear developments without consideration of how to handle its radioactive legacy were left, as usual, for someone else to deal with.

There was yet another problem just showing over the horizon which might prove even more intractable. BNFL had been quietly constructing a new building in West Cumbria, the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) on the end of the THORP plant, and had already applied to the Environment Agency to start its commissioning process.

In some ways, this was to be a more difficult decision than THORP and NIREX, two problems which were inherited and had to be dealt with on a continuing basis. The SMP had not been subject to any governmental scrutiny and most people, never having heard of MOX, had no understanding of its complexities and BNFL's controversial claims for it. But, most importantly, it was still an uncontaminated plant without authorisation to commence operations and it could have been mothballed or converted for other purposes rather than allowed to start producing MOX pellets (approx 95% fresh uranium mixed with approx 5% plutonium recovered in the adjoining THORP Plant).

Although not a new process, MOX was upgraded as a potential extension of the plutonium economy just as the fast breeder dream began to fade. To the contracting utilities, plutonium is both an embarrassment and a focal point for anti-nuclear campaigns when shipments are returned. The level of opposition to the international transportation of spent fuel, plutonium oxide and nuclear waste has been both unexpected and impressive, particularly in Germany. To BNFL, MOX is both a means of returning plutonium to countries of origin in a potentially less controversial form and a new commercial venture for an ailing industry.

Before irradiation in a reactor, plutonium can be extracted from MOX fuel relatively easily. MOX, therefore, provides an unacceptable proliferation risk and an increased burden on an already overstretched international safeguards regime.

British Energy has already said, "It would be thoroughly uneconomic for us to convert our AGR reactors to use the new MOX fuel. It is not just a cost issue either. It would require a lot of extra shielding and protection for our workers. It would be difficult, if not impossible for us to take MOX fuel".

And then there is the issue of spent MOX fuel which is more highly radioactive than uranium spent fuel and thus more difficult to deal with. Some of the uranium will also have been turned into plutonium in the reactor, thus making nonsense of BNFL's claims that MOX will reduce the plutonium stockpile at Sellafield. Contracting utilities have apparently been offered reprocessing contracts by BNFL, provided they first agree to pay for the alterations to THORP which would be required to handle the spent MOX fuel. Despite the undoubted controversy this would cause, the Government has remained silent on the issue, and concerns raised by CND in our submissions to each of the public consultations were ignored.

MOX is no more than a justification for THORP and the next technical fix and business opportunity for BNFL. It will also add to the growing radioactive legacy from the nuclear experiment and create more waste material with no long-term plan for its management.

Recent developments offer some hope of progress. In November 2001, it was announced that a new Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) would take responsibility for managing public sector civil nuclear liabilities and developing an overall UK strategy for decommissioning and clean-up.

Meanwhile, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) initiated a public consultation on ‘Managing Radioactive Waste Safely’ to which CND made a submission in March 2002. We cautiously welcomed this consultation but drew attention to the limitations of previous consultation processes and to the need for a much wider public debate on all related issues and problems, including those created by the military in pursuit of the so-called nuclear deterrent.

The industry hopes that the separation of production from waste management will provide an opportunity to expand its commercial interests and generating capacity, unencumbered by its troublesome ‘backend’ which will now be largely paid for directly from public funds.

It is CND’s view, however, that public acceptance of a radioactive waste management policy would be enhanced by a decision to phase out nuclear power and reprocessing, thereby gradually reducing the amount of waste produced and giving the industry a finite amount to deal with, sooner rather than later. If the LMA and any future waste management body are to succeed in their complex tasks, they will have to prioritise work and be seen to be genuinely receptive to public concerns.

CND believes that the plutonium economy can, and must, be halted and reversed but we cannot just rely on it to grind to a stop under its own weight. There is too much vested interest and too many reputations at stake for that to happen. It is our collective responsibility to hasten its demise and encourage the waste management and clean-up programme.

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