FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Steven Dolley, Tom Clements
Thursday, May 17, 2001 (202)-822-8444; dolley@nci.org
BUSH PLAN FOR NUCLEAR POWER AND PLUTONIUM
INVITES NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AND
PROLIFERATION
The Nuclear Control Institute today released the following statement of NCI President Paul Leventhal in response to the Bush Administrations release of its energy plan:
The Bush Administrations call for a major
expansion of nuclear power and for reconsideration of reprocessing and use of
plutonium, an atom bomb material, as reactor fuel, is a 21st century
sirens song. This invitation to
catastrophe is especially worrisome because it is so misinformed.
A push for nuclear power isnt the
way to meet urgent energy needs. New
plants could not be brought on line fast enough to offset present electricity
shortages and would do little to reduce greenhouse gas emission, two-thirds of
which come from the transportation and other sectors. Energy efficiency and alternative energy measures could be
implemented to offset the need to build any new nuclear plants, thus avoiding
reactor-safety and weapons-proliferation risks associated with nuclear power. (See todays New York Times op-ed
article at http://www.nci.org/oped.htm.)
The Bush energy plan endorses
consideration of conventional reprocessing for waste management, which also
separates plutonium for use as fuel in reactors. It also presses for pyroprocessing and accelerator transmutation
of plutonium and other long-lived radioactive products in nuclear reactor spent
fuel. Both approaches to reprocessing
are uneconomic and dangerous.
"The plan makes no mention of the enormous cost
projected for establishing a pyroprocessing and transmutation system. The Department of Energy estimated in 1999
that this program would cost $280 billion and take 100 years to complete. Transmutation, which involves pyroprocessing,
reprocessing and sub-critical nuclear reactors, is highly problematical and
does not eliminate the need for a final waste repository.
The Bush energy plan cites the reprocessing
experience of Britain, France and Japan as an example for the United States to
follow. In fact, neither France,
Britain nor Japan has a long-term plan to dispose of high-level waste
associated with reprocessing. They are
currently struggling with what to do with reprocessing waste and growing
stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium.
The French national utility recently admitted that
reactor fuel made with separated plutonium is three to four times more
expensive than the conventional fuel made with low-enriched uranium that cannot
be used in bombs.
The British plutonium program has proved an
economic and technological disaster, with a stockpile of some 70 metric tons of
separated plutonium and no domestic utilities willing or able to use it. The British Industrial Forum recently
declared: Proliferation is a major issue in the nuclear fuel cycle. Nuclear power may become more acceptable to
the public if reprocessing is shut down.
The Japanese plutonium program is frozen in
controversy because of safety and security concerns and high costs associated
with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel and due to an accident in 1995
which closed the Japanese breeder reactor, Monju. It is also generating
tensions in East Asia as Japans neighbors wonder why the Japanese are
accumulating such a large stockpile of atom bomb material.
The only good thing that might come
from President Bushs dalliance with plutonium is that his plutonium plan will
inspire close scrutiny and expose the lie that the European and Japanese
reprocessing programs have been living, sheltered from market forces and
shielded from public debate by the government-owned monopolies that run
them.
Close scrutiny will also expose the shallowness of the arguments put
forward by the nuclear industrys friends on Capitol Hill, who have been
pushing the Bush Administration to reverse the decisions against reprocessing
made in the Ford, Carter and Reagan Administrations and to follow the Europeans
and Japanese instead.
In addition to the security concerns associated with keeping commercial plutonium out of the wrong hands, there are also major safety concerns associated with the processing, transport, storage and use of this deadly carcinogen. A speck of plutonium the size of a pollen grain, if caught in the lungs, causes cancer.
A recent study by NCIs Scientific Director, Dr.
Edwin Lyman, to appear in the next issue of the Princeton University journal Science
& Global Security (pdf/lyman-mox-sgs.pdf),
shows that a power reactor that is fueled with plutonium fuel (MOX) fuel in
one-quarter of a reactors core, would cause 100% more latent cancer fatalities
in the event of a severe reactor accident, compared with the same accident
involving a reactor with all-uranium fuel in its core. An accident involving a 100%-MOX core could
result in a 300% increase in cancer fatalities.
The Bush Administration is now
pushing a program to dispose of excess weapons plutonium by turning it into MOX
fuel for use in U.S. power reactors.
This program opens the door for reprocessing and reuse of plutonium from
commercial reactor fuel. Fuel made with
weapons plutonium, a different grade than commercial plutonium, would kill 25%
more people in a severe reactor accident, compared with all-uranium fuel,
according to Dr. Lymans study. This
program is even more dangerous in Russia where reactor safety and materials
security fall far below western standards.
Surplus weapons plutonium in the U.S. and Russia,
as well as commercial plutonium worldwide, should be immobilized in existing
highly radioactive, self-protecting nuclear waste. The Bush Administration is taking the most dangerous course, and
setting the wrong example, by advocating the separation of plutonium from
commercial spent fuel and by killing off funding for the immobilization program
to dispose of military plutonium as waste rather than use it as fuel.
Note to editors: Papers on energy efficiency, energy alternatives, and proliferation risks of nuclear power from NCIs April 9 Conference, Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: Can We Have One Without the Other?, can be found at http://www.nci.org/conference.htm.