U.S. Would Turn Nine Tons of Weapons Plutonium Into MOX Fuel

VIENNA, Austria, September 18, 2007 (ENS) - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced here Monday that the United States will remove nine metric tons of plutonium from further use as fissile material in U.S. nuclear weapons. Nine metric tons is enough plutonium to make over 1,000 nuclear weapons, said Bodman, stressing that the move signifies the Bush administration’s ongoing commitment to nuclear nonproliferation.

Speaking at the International Atomic Energy Agency's annual general conference, Bodman said, “The United States is leading by example and furthering our commitment to nonproliferation and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by safely reducing the amount of weapons-usable nuclear material in the world."

The nine tons of plutonium will be removed over "coming decades" from retired, dismantled nuclear weapons. It will be eliminated by fabrication into mixed uranium and plutonium oxide, MOX, fuel that can be burned in commercial nuclear reactors to produce electricity, Bodman said.

The first MOX fuel fabrication facility is now under construction at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site at the Georgia-South Carolina border.

In 2004, President George W. Bush directed that the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile be reduced by almost half from its size in 2001 when he entered office.

This move is consistent with the president’s commitment to maintaining the lowest number of nuclear weapons while providing for national security, Bodman said. By 2012, the U.S. nuclear arsenal will be at its lowest level since the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s, he said.

The plutonium announcement follows Secretary Bodman’s 2005 announcement that the United States will remove from further use in U.S. nuclear weapons up to 200 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from retired nuclear warheads.

Secretary Bodman said. "As the United States continues to reduce the size of its nuclear weapons stockpile, we will be able to dispose of even more nuclear material while increasing energy and national security."

Critics have attacked the MOX program as unsafe and likely to create new proliferation hazards.

They argue that the use of MOX fuel will make reactors more difficult to control, reducing safety margins, and that the increase in the quantity of actinides in the core would result in more deaths in the event of a catastrophic reactor meltdown and containment failure.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.