BY JIM GREEN
A shipment of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel travelling from Japan to England has generated a storm of protest because of the safety risks it poses and the additional risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Two ships, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, left Takahama, Japan, on July 4 and are scheduled to arrive at the Sellafield nuclear site operated by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) in northern England in early August.
An anti-nuclear flotilla organised by Greenpeace, comprising more than 10 yachts and about 80 people from several countries, drew media attention to the MOX shipments as they passed through the Tasman Sea in mid-July.
The shipment is also opposed by many governments worldwide. For example, the 78 governments represented at the Africa Caribbean and Pacific Summit denounced the shipments in a July 19 declaration and called for the immediate cessation of all nuclear shipments through their waters. These states are primarily concerned about the risk of accidents involving nuclear shipments, and inadequate liability and compensation arrangements.
The MOX being shipped to Sellafield is the same MOX that was shipped in the opposite direction in 1999. Its plutonium was produced in Japanese power reactors as a by-product of electricity generation, it was separated from spent reactor fuel in European reprocessing plants and then converted into MOX fuel pellets.
A scandal erupted just as the MOX shipment was approaching Japan in 1999, when it was revealed that BNFL had failed to properly carry out safety checks on it and had falsified safety records. Hence the return of the MOX to Sellafield, with BNFL also agreeing to pay many millions of dollars in compensation to the Japanese nuclear utility Kansai Electric.
That scandal is one reason for the controversy surrounding the current shipment, but there are many others. The shipment poses significant environmental and public health risks. The two ships are described as "floating terrorist targets" by Greenpeace. George Monbiot described them as "a pair of floating dirty bombs, waiting for a detonator" in the June 11 British Guardian.
The safety risks arise not only from the shipments themselves but also from the web in which MOX is embroiled: shipments of spent fuel from Japan to Europe; highly contentious reprocessing plants in Britain and France; and the shipment of not only MOX but also separated plutonium dioxide and high-level radioactive wastes from Europe to Japan following reprocessing.
To date, not a single gram of plutonium returned from Europe to Japan (whether in the form of plutonium dioxide or MOX) has been used to generate electricity. In other words, the huge expense, the safety risks, the weapons proliferation risks, and the international political controversy, have all been for nothing.
If and when MOX is used in power reactors in Japan, it will be more dangerous than conventional uranium fuel, adding yet another unnecessary safety hazard. When, and if, MOX is used in power reactors in Japan, it will generate highly radioactive spent fuel and nuclear corporations will be faced with the same problem they began with — mounting stockpiles of radioactive waste, for which no long-term storage or disposal options exist.
The plutonium fuel cycle makes no economic sense whatsoever — a point now made by some nuclear power corporations, such as British Energy, which are attempting to extract themselves from reprocessing contracts. It is several times more expensive to produce MOX than to produce conventional uranium fuel.
Weapons proliferation
The development of a "civilian" plutonium fuel cycle adds to the risks of weapons proliferation. The MOX shipment currently travelling to Britain contains about 250 kilograms of plutonium, enough for about 50 nuclear weapons. Many more shipments are planned.
While separated plutonium poses the greatest risk of weapons proliferation, plutonium can also be extracted from MOX for use in weapons. In addition, all radioactive materials can be used in "dirty" radiation bombs (which use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive substances).
The proliferation risks are far greater for MOX and for separated plutonium than for conventional uranium fuel which does not contain plutonium and could not be used for nuclear weapons.
Japan's stockpile of plutonium — which currently exceeds five tonnes — has been a source of considerable tension between it and north-east Asian states such as South Korea and China. The tension increases when senior Japanese politicians talk up the prospect of Japan developing a nuclear weapons capability. This nuclear sabre-rattling would ring hollow without the plutonium stockpiles derived from the ostensibly "peaceful" plutonium fuel cycle.
Confidential documents obtained by Greenpeace reveal that, since the early 1990s, the US government has been warned by its embassy in Tokyo that Japan's plutonium program heightens the risk of weapons proliferation in north-east Asia.
A 1993 cable from an embassy official to then-US secretary of state Warren Christopher posed the questions: "Can Japan expect that if it embarks on a massive plutonium recycling program that Korea and other nations would not press ahead with reprocessing programs? Would not the perception of Japan being awash in plutonium and possessing leading edge rocket technology create anxiety in the region?"
MOX madness
Nuclear power corporations, including those in Japan, are complicit in the MOX madness. Their primary interest is to dump spent reactor fuel somewhere else, on someone else, rather than managing it themselves. Reprocessing plants serve this objective by acting as storage sites.
Corporations such as BNFL and Cogema have a direct interest in the expansion of reprocessing. BNFL wants to protect and expand not only its reprocessing operations but also its recently approved MOX production plant at Sellafield.
In the June 11 Guardian, Monbiot attempted to explain BNFL's "logic": "It must defend those markets [for MOX] in order to justify the government's decision in October to allow the MOX plant at Sellafield in Cumbria to open. The MOX plant opened in order to make sense of the reprocessing operations at Sellafield, which extract plutonium and uranium from nuclear waste. The reprocessing was permitted in order to provide a reason for Sellafield's continued existence. Sellafield exists in order to keep the British nuclear power programme running.
"The British nuclear power programme exists because — well, it exists because it exists. There may once have been a reason, but if so it has been lost in the mists of time. Britain's nuclear policy, in other words, is like the old woman who swallowed a fly. Every solution is worse than the problem it was supposed to address. Every new justification ratchets up the probability of a major nuclear accident or breach of security. Yet the programme's institutional momentum carries all before it."
Australia's complicity
The Australian government is possibly the only government in the Asia-Pacific region to support shipments of MOX, plutonium and high-level waste through the region.
Thousands of tonnes of Australia-origin natural uranium, enriched uranium, depleted uranium and plutonium are held by Japan (whether currently in Japan or in Europe).
Australian governments have some control over this "Australian obligated nuclear material". Japan needs permission from Australia before it can conduct nuclear transfers — or processes such as reprocessing — involving AONM. At least some, perhaps all, of the shipments of plutonium, MOX and high-level waste between Japan and Europe have contained AONM.
Successive Australian governments have granted permission for plutonium separation and shipments, in large part because of the commercial interests of uranium mining companies operating in Australia.
In 1992, the federal Labor government consented to a shipment of plutonium from France to Japan. The government claimed that Japan would only receive enough separated plutonium for use in its fast breeder program — which has never progressed beyond the experimental stage and has been dogged by serious accidents.
Foreign minister Gareth Evans said in 1992 that the government "would not support the stockpiling of plutonium by Japan or any other non-nuclear weapon state". But successive governments, Labor and Coalition, have continued to endorse plutonium and MOX transfers even as Japan's plutonium stockpile mounts.
According to Greenpeace, "This [MOX] trade places a special burden on the South Pacific region which, thanks to Australia's pro-nuclear lobbying and secret dealings, will be viewed as the path of least resistance for most of the cargoes to travel through."
Australian governments have lobbied members of the Pacific Islands Forum (formerly the South Pacific Forum) — the 16-member grouping that includes Australia, New Zealand and smaller states — in an attempt to weaken their opposition to nuclear shipments.
In addition to the commercial interests of uranium mining companies, successive Australian governments have supported nuclear shipments between Europe and Japan because of the US-Australian military-nuclear alliance. A ban on shipments of "civilian" plutonium and radioactive wastes could strengthen opposition to US nuclear-armed warships in the region.
Yet another reason for the behaviour of successive Australian governments is that they have sent several shipments of spent fuel from the reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney to the US and Europe for storage or processing. Many more such shipments are planned in the coming years and decades, in addition to return shipments of wastes arising from the processing of the spent fuel. A leaked memo from the Australian delegation to the 1993 South Pacific Forum meeting explicitly linked Australia's support for nuclear shipments passing through the region with the government's plans to export spent fuel from Lucas Heights.
From Green Left Weekly, July 31, 2002.
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