By George Lobsenz
At a nuclear security summit that yielded several other nonproliferation victories for President Obama, the United States and Russia signed a new agreement Tuesday that revives a 2000 plutonium disposal pact between the new countries by formally allowing Russia to use fast reactors to burn up the weapons-usable material–providing those facilities are modified to prevent the “breeding” of additional plutonium.
The agreement appears to follow the lines of a preliminary deal negotiated by the Bush administration and announced in November 2007 under which the United States agreed to provide $400 million to Russia to carry out plutonium disposal operations in an existing fast reactor, known as BN-600, at Russia’s Beloyarsk nuclear site and an advanced fast reactor called BN-800 under construction at the same site.
The use of fast reactors is controversial because they can produce more plutonium they burn, and Russia in the past has indicated it wants to pursue a closed nuclear fuel cycle in which plutonium is bred in fast reactors and recycled for re-use.
In contrast, the United States is planning to burn surplus plutonium in commercial light-water reactors that do not produce more plutonium. Current U.S, policy calls for the irradiated spent fuel resulting from those operations to be disposed of in a geologic repository.
Russia’s insistence on using fast reactors–and its overall interest in plutonium recycling–has been a key factor in the inability of the United States and Russia to move forward on the 2000 U.S.-Russia pact forged under the Clinton administration in which the two countries pledged to each dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium.
In a fact sheet describing the new Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement signed Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the Obama administration appeared to obliquely address the plutonium breeding issue by saying the new agreement allowed Russia to use fast-neutron reactors “operating under certain nonproliferation conditions.”
The fact sheet did not explicitly state what those conditions are, but past U.S.-Russian discussions have focused on modifying the two Russian fast reactors so they cannot breed more plutonium during disposition of the surplus weapons plutonium covered under the 2000 pact.
A DoE official Tuesday provided sister publication The Energy Daily with additional specifics on the “nonproliferation conditions” being imposed on Russia’s use of fast reactors, which include:
- Removal of a portion of the BN-600 reactor “blanket” that produces plutonium;
- Operating the BN-800 so that it burns more plutonium than it produces;
- Prohibiting the reprocessing of BN-600 uranium fuel from resulting in any new separated weapon-grade plutonium; and
- Requiring a monitoring and inspections regime to be in place.
However, the new agreement, which calls for each nation to begin plutonium disposal by 2018, does not bar the eventual recycling of the weapons plutonium for civilian purposes.
The agreement prohibits the reprocessing of the 34 metric tons of plutonium covered under the new disposal agreement until Russia has fulfilled its 34 metric ton disposition obligation. Such plutonium may then be reprocessed provided such reprocessing will be only for non-weapons purposes and subject to mutually agreed international monitoring even after termination of the plutonium agreement.
The recycling issue also was finessed publicly when the Bush administration in late 2007 preliminarily approved Russia’s plan to use fast reactors for plutonium disposal; Russia initially was to use light-water reactors. A Nov. 19, 2007, joint statement by then-Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergey Kiriyenko on the new Russian plan did not contain any Russian commitments to modify the BN-600 or BN-800 fast reactors to ensure they do not produce more plutonium than they burn during the nonproliferation initiative.
However, an Energy Department press release issued at that time quoted Bodman as saying, “the Russian program will ensure that enough plutonium for thousands of weapons is converted into a form which cannot be used to construct a weapon and will instead be used to provide fuel to produce clean electricity.”
Still, any agreement by Obama to allowing plutonium recycling is sure to draw criticism from nonproliferation and antinuclear groups. They note that past U.S. nuclear policies have strongly opposed plutonium recycling even for civilian power reactors because it typically results in large stocks of separated plutonium that can be targeted for theft or diversion by terrorists or rogue nations seeking to fabricate nuclear weapons. Recycling also creates environmental problems by generating large amounts of high-level radioactive waste needing disposal.
The plutonium recycling issue is particularly sensitive for the Obama administration because the focus of the president’s nuclear security policy is to lock down and minimize production and civilian use of weapons-usable plutonium and high-enriched uranium (HEU) to prevent proliferation risks.
Obama Tuesday hailed commitments by the leaders of Canada, Mexico and Ukraine at the summit to get rid of their HEU stocks–typically used in research reactors–by shipping them to the United States or Russia for secure storage.
However, Russia, Japan, France and other countries continue to pursue plutonium recycling for civilian purposes and the Obama administration has irritated some of its environmentalist allies by suggesting recycling might help solve the nation’s vexing nuclear waste disposal problem. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other administration officials have suggested one solution to the nation’s growing pile of nuclear waste might be to reduce the amount of waste needing disposal by developing advanced methods for reprocessing spent reactor fuel to recover plutonium and uranium that might then be re-used in power reactors.
DoE under the Bush administration pursued such recycling research and development in conjunction with Russia and other countries, and the Obama administration is continuing that international R&D agenda.
And at home, the Obama administration is continuing an ongoing DoE program to deploy recycling technology to meet the U.S. commitment to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium.
Despite considerable cost and controversy, DoE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is now building billions of dollars worth of new facilities at DoE’s Savannah River Site in Sotuh Carolina to convert U.S. weapons plutonium into uranium-plutonium–or mixed oxide (MOX)–fuel for use in civilian reactors.
The U.S. MOX program has been attacked by nonproliferation groups opposed to plutonium recycling, and has aroused ire in Congress because the cost of the so-called MOX fuel fabrication plant has ballooned from an initial $1 billion to $4.8 billion.
At the same time, while DoE initially had an agreement with Duke Energy to burn the MOX fuel in its commercial reactors, that agreement recently lapsed, although Duke officials say they remain interested. DoE is also pursuing possible use of MOX in Tennessee Valley Authority reactors.
Russian environmentalists also oppose plutonium recycling on proliferation and environmental grounds. And in a new report released Tuesday, one Russian group called EcoDefense said the Russian fast reactor program had suffered major delays and cost overruns.
The group also said the Russian government in January approved a program of advanced technologies development program worth $4.3 billion, and that most of the funding will go for breeder reactor development.