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How Not to Reduce Plutonium Stocks. The dangers of MOX-fuelled Nuclear Reactors (1999)

Author	Corner House, F.Barnaby
Date	December 1999
Classification	6.01.2.56/11 (PLUTONIUM - MOX & POSSIBLE RE-USE WEAPONS PU / HEU)
Front

How Not to Reduce Plutonium Stocks
The Danger of MOX-fuelled Nuclear Reactors

THE CORNER HOUSE

Plutonium is a radioactive by-product of nuclear reactor operation and one of the 
most toxic substances known. The world would be a safer place if the governments 
of countries with stocks of it, including Britain, would adopt effective policies 
for reducing and managing them.
Two recent authoritative reports recommend that the British government take 
urgent action to reduce its "civil" plutonium stock - currently one quarter of 
the world's total and set to rise to about two-thirds by the year 2010.
The March 1999 House of Lords report, Management of Nuclear Waste, concludes 
that British government policy on plutonium "should be the maintenance of the 
minimum strategic stock, and the declaration of the remainder as waste". (1) 
A report from the Royal Society, Britain's main learned society, meanwhile
states that:

"In addition to disposing of some of the plutonium already in the stockpile, steps 
should be taken to reduce the amount added to it each year, primarily by reducing 
the amount of reprocessing carried out." (2)

The government's reply to the House of Lords is expected to be followed by a 
public consultation before changes in legislation are proposed. (3)
But, at the same time, the government is considering an application from British 
Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), the government-owned company which separates 
plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods, for a licence to operate a new plant at 
Sellafield in Cumbria to produce mixed-oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel from its 
plutonium stockpile. (4) The nuclear industry justifies the Sellafield MOX plant 
as one way of reducing plutonium stocks.
But critics point out that this is not a rational way to manage plutonium. This 
briefing aims to contribute to an informed debate during the current flurry of 
British government nuclear policymaking by explaining why.

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