A shipment of mixed plutonium/uranium oxide (MOX) nuclear reactor fuel from Europe to Japan poses dangerous weapons proliferation, environmental and public health risks.

There have been several shipments of high-level radioactive waste, and one shipment of plutonium, from Europe to Japan in the 1990s. However the current shipment is the first transfer of MOX and it could be followed by as many as 80 MOX shipments over the next decade unless international opposition stops the trade.

An expanded MOX trade will spread weapons-useable plutonium more widely than ever before and raise tensions in the politically volatile north-east Asian region. The shipment currently travelling to Japan contains enough plutonium for about 60 nuclear weapons. Greenpeace predicts that as many as 40 tonnes of plutonium could be transferred to Japan over the next decade, enough for several thousand weapons.

The nuclear industry sometimes claims that extracting plutonium from MOX is technically complicated. However the US Department of Energy said in 1997 that "fresh MOX fuel remains a material in the most sensitive category because plutonium suitable for use in weapons could be separated from it relatively easily." Similar statements have been made by the UK Environment Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The safety of the shipment has been seriously jeopardised by cost-cutting and secrecy. Problems include inadequate design, testing and construction of the transport containers, insufficient emergency planning, and inadequate liability coverage. The MOX will be used to fuel Japanese reactors which were not designed to handle this fuel, thus decreasing safety margins.

The MOX is being transported on two ships which left French and British ports between July 19 and July 22. They are expected to arrive in Japan in mid September. The ships will cross the Indian Ocean then pass through the Tasman Sea. The route was announced by Japanese, French, and British officials only after an international controversy. Specific details regarding the route have not been provided, nor is there a guarantee that the ships will not pass through waters under the jurisdiction of en-route nations.

The New Zealand and Irish governments have expressed opposition to the shipment because of safety and security concerns. Twenty five countries in the Caribbean region protested against the MOX shipment, which may be the reason the current shipment is not passing through the Panama Canal. The South African government says that it does not want the ships passing through its territorial waters.

The growing controversy mirrors the experience of 1992, when over 50 countries protested against a plutonium shipment from France to Japan.

Plutonium economy.

Current efforts to expand the use of MOX represent the latest attempt of the nuclear industry to establish a civil plutonium economy. Plutonium is virtually non-existent in nature but is produced in all nuclear reactors. Several countries operate reprocessing plants which separate plutonium, uranium and waste from spent reactor fuel. Historically the main use for plutonium has been nuclear weapons construction, and the main purpose of reprocessing has been to separate plutonium for weapons.

Parallel plans were developed to use plutonium (and thus reprocessing plants) for nuclear power. There was great hope that "fast breeder" power reactors - which use plutonium as fuel and produce more plutonium than they consume - would become widespread. This would justify the expansion of the reprocessing industry, thus generating profits and also supplying plutonium for weapons if necessary.

Surplus plutonium produced in fast breeders could be mixed with uranium and used as MOX fuel, thus addressing another concern in the post-war decades - that uranium supplies could dry up. Thanks to the plutonium economy, nuclear power would be too cheap to meter and everyone would live happily ever after.

However, fast breeder programs have been cancelled, or are in grave danger, in every country in which they have been pursued including Japan, the US, France, Germany, former Soviet states, the UK and France.

With the failure of fast breeder programs, the rationale for reprocessing spent reactor fuel has become very dubious. It makes no sense to reprocess spent fuel simply to extract (unused) uranium, because fresh uranium can be obtained more cheaply.

The failure of fast breeder programs should have signalled an end to the plutonium economy. But commercial, political and military interests have been established which depend on the survival and expansion of a plutonium fuel cycle. Thus the use of MOX in conventional power reactors was trumpeted.

MOX makes little economic sense. According to a report in The Economist (June 1993), MOX would be more expensive than uranium fuel even if the plutonium was free. A 1998 report by the US-based Nuclear Control Institute says that uranium fuel is 4-8 times cheaper than MOX.

However there are some short-term interests driving the current expansion of MOX trade, as well as a strong ideological factor - keeping alive the fading dream of a plutonium economy.

Consolidating a MOX fuel cycle will prop up the European reprocessing and MOX production industries. Large investments have been made in these industries in France, the UK and Belgium over the past decade. Reprocessing plants at Sellafield (Britain) and La Hague (France) are the biggest plutonium producers on the planet. Combined, they have over 100 tonnes of plutonium in storage. Both plants are government owned, and the establishment of MOX trade is of considerable importance to the British and French governments.

Currently, only a very small percentage of nuclear power reactors around the world use MOX fuel, with most using low-enriched uranium fuel which cannot easily be transformed into a weapons-useable form. Countries using MOX for at least some of their reactors include Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. The future demand of MOX in Germany and Switzerland is uncertain because of widespread opposition to reprocessing and nuclear power in general. Thus the Japanese plutonium program takes on added significance.

Japan already has a stockpile of several tonnes of plutonium, which was (ostensibly) acquired for its now-stalled breeder program. While Japan has not built nuclear weapons, it has the expertise, the industrial and technical infrastructure, and the fissile material, to do so within a period of months or perhaps only weeks. Japan also has the technology to deliver nuclear weapons. Some influential Japanese politicians - including former Cabinet ministers - have publicly advocated nuclear weapons production in Japan in recent years. No doubt these politicians are interested in the military implications of MOX transfers.

While Japan's bomb lobby wants plutonium for bombs, the logic of other MOX supporters in Japan is more difficult to fathom. The use of MOX, and the troubled breeder program, provides an excuse to send spent fuel overseas for reprocessing. Much of Japan's spent fuel is held at European reprocessing plants. Major reprocessing plants such as Sellafield have become de facto nuclear waste dumps. Sending spent fuel overseas pacifies public opposition to Japan's nuclear power program and weakens opposition to plans to construct more reactors.

Regardless of the wishes of the Japanese nuclear industry, there is no certainty that its MOX program will go ahead due to serious technical problems and public opposition.

Australia's complicity

Official reports show that thousands of tonnes of Australian natural uranium, enriched uranium, depleted uranium and plutonium are held by Japan (whether currently in Japan or in Europe).

In the early 1980s, the Australian government signed agreements permitting the separation of Japanese plutonium produced using Australian uranium at British and French reprocessing plants. The Australian government also agreed to shipments of spent fuel, high-level waste and plutonium between Europe and Japan.

In 1992, the Labor government consented to a shipment of plutonium from France to Japan. The government claimed that Japan would only take receipt of enough separated plutonium for use in its planned fast breeder program. Gareth Evans, then the foreign minister, said "the Government would not support the stockpiling of plutonium by Japan or any other non-nuclear weapon state." In fact, far more plutonium was sent to Japan than has been used in breeder reactors, and several tonnes are now stockpiled.

The agreement between Australia and Japan was renewed in May 1998, without any public or parliamentary debate. Although the current shipment will not contain plutonium derived from Australian uranium, future shipments definitely will.

Allowing Japan to stockpile plutonium undermines claims that Australia is at the forefront of non-proliferation efforts. 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. The secretive nature of the Japanese plutonium trade - consented to in closed negotiations by Australian officials (as well as Canberra's complicity in keeping the route secret from the regional community) exemplifies the undemocratic way in which the Australian government engages in nuclear matters."

The 1998 agreement could still be reviewed. The department of foreign affairs says that if there are significant changes in Japan's nuclear program, Australia could challenge the transfer of plutonium derived from Australian uranium. The risk of Japan developing nuclear weapons is itself ample reason to veto the transfers.

The Indian and Pakistani nuclear programs, and China's nuclear weapons build-up, are providing ideological ammunition for Japan's bomb lobby and this provides further reason for Australia to prohibit the separation and shipment of plutonium.

Challenging Japan's plutonium trade would of course jeopardise future uranium sales; customer countries do not want strings attached. Australian governments - Liberal or Labor - have also been unwilling to challenge the passage of spent fuel, MOX, plutonium or high-level waste through the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific. Australian governments do not want to jeopardise the passage of US nuclear armed or powered warships through the region. Moreover, several shipments of nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights reactor in suburban Sydney have been sent overseas, and many more shipments are planned if a new reactor is built.

A scandal has erupted over the failure of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) to carry out safety checks on nuclear fuel elements which it plans to ship to Japan later this year. Following revelations in the British newspaper The Independent, BNFL admitted that records relating to the testing of 11 batches of mixed uranium/plutonium oxide fuel (MOX) had been falsified. Later, BNFL revealed that there were at least twice as many cases of BNFL employees "saving time" by failing to carry out checks and using data from previous samples instead. Three BNFL employees have been suspended.

The scandal comes at an awkward time for BNFL because two ships carrying MOX have just completed a two-month journey from Europe to Japan. Some of this MOX was produced at BNFL's Sellafield plant, while the rest was produced in France and Belgium.

In Japan, many are demanding thorough checks of the first shipment of MOX, unconvinced by BNFL's claim that its investigation has cleared it of any irregularities.

On September 15, Fukui Shimbun, a Japanese nuclear safety official in Fukui Prefecture, warned that since an examination of the first shipment "cannot be carried out in Japan, it may be necessary to have the ships transport the fuel back to Europe".

Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and Japanese safety authorities, have demanded assurances over the quality of the first shipment of MOX before allowing it to be used.

Relations are strained. The Kansai Electric Power Company, one of BNFL's largest clients, flew investigators to the UK and launched its own inquiry into quality control at Sellafield. The British Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is also investigating the scandal.

BNFL is operating what it calls a "demonstration" MOX production plant at Sellafield. It hopes to expand its MOX production capacity to 120 tonnes per year, a significant increase over the current global capacity of 190 tonnes per year. Whether the current scandal will jeopardise BNFL's planned expansion is not yet clear, but Tony Blair's New Labour government has proven itself a staunch and uncritical supporter of the nuclear industry.

The French nuclear industry is also planning to expand its use of MOX and its role in the international plutonium trade. Last year, Dominique Voynet, environment minister and leader of the French Greens, agreed to sign two decrees authorising the use of MOX in four French reactors.

The current scandal mirrors a similar one in Japan last year. In December, a Japanese nuclear engineering company admitted falsifying data on the safety of materials supplied to BNFL to line canisters used to transport nuclear materials including spent reactor fuel and MOX. Four power utility companies announced suspension of the use of the canisters pending investigation into their safety.

International protest

One of the two ships carrying the first batch of MOX was expected to dock in Japan on September 22. A crowd of protesters gathered to greet it, but weather conditions prevented docking.

The plutonium shipments have generated a growing international controversy. Bones of contention include safety concerns, the failure to give prior warning to countries passed by the ships, and the inadequacy of international liability arrangements.

Among those to have lodged objections with the Japanese, French and British Governments are Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, Mauritius, Fiji, the South Pacific Forum, South Korea and the Association of Caribbean States.

Public opposition in South Korea is believed to have been responsible for a decision not to take one of the MOX-laden ships through the straits between Korea and Japan. Long-standing opposition from Caribbean states is believed to have ruled out shipping MOX through the Panama Canal, with the Indian Ocean / Tasman Sea route being preferred instead.

Weapons proliferation

MOX trade poses enormous risks in relation to weapons proliferation. The first shipment to Japan contains enough plutonium for about 60 nuclear weapons, and there are plans for dozens more shipments in the coming years unless international opposition can stop the trade.

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 cable from an embassy official to then US secretary of state Warren Christopher in 1993 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?"

These are precisely the questions that anti-nuclear and environmental activists have been asking for years, only to be ignored or lied to.

US embassy officials have also questioned the economic logic of Japan's plutonium program and speculated that it might be driven primarily by military aspirations. Such speculation has been fuelled a number of times over the years by senior Japanese politicians arguing for a nuclear weapons program. For example, in early August a Japanese Diet (parliament) member from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party suggested that Japan should build nuclear bombs.

However there are major political obstacles facing Japan's nuclear bomb lobby. The majority opinion within the political and military elite is that Japan now has the best of both worlds: it can truthfully claim not to have built nuclear bombs, while at the same time it has the expertise, equipment and materials to build and deliver nuclear bombs within a space of months, perhaps just weeks.

As a senior nuclear adviser to the Japanese government said in the August 12 edition of Nucleonics Week, Japan is a "virtual weapons state". (A similar logic lies behind the Australian government's plan to replace the nuclear research reactor in Sydney, although Australia will remain far behind Japan in terms of nuclear expertise, equipment and materials even with a new reactor.)

Efforts by South Korea and North Korea to pursue nuclear programs which would involve the acquisition of plutonium, or developing the capacity to separate plutonium from spent fuel, have been fiercely resisted by Western governments for decades. However, the plutonium industry, threatened with a collapse in European demand, is now seeking to secure contracts with South Korea in defiance of long standing Western policy to prevent Seoul from obtaining direct-use nuclear weapons material.

Throw in the North Korean nuclear program, and the tension between China and Taiwan, and it is clear that north-east Asia will be a volatile nuclear hot-spot in the next century.

Shaun Burnie, from Greenpeace International, said, "The plutonium powder keg is already smouldering in north-east Asia, and unless the international community, including Clinton, abandon their "selective proliferation policy" it may become an inferno. No country, no matter what their supposed peaceful intentions, should have access to plutonium. Japan should act to halt this slide to nuclear confrontation in Asia and end its unjustified and dangerous plutonium program."

Desperate for a fig-leaf of ideological legitimacy, governments and companies involved in the plutonium trade often spout the lie that "reactor-grade" plutonium, such as that contained in MOX, cannot be used for nuclear weapons. This is contradicted by successful weapons tests using reactor-grade plutonium.

The ability to use reactor-grade plutonium for weapons production has been admitted by the Australian Safeguards Office, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the US Department of Energy. To deconstruct the relevant nukespeak, "reactor-grade" plutonium is "weapons-useable" even though higher-purity "weapons-grade" plutonium is better for the purpose.

Australian complicity

Australian governments, past and present, are complicit in the plutonium trade. The Howard government has admitted that some of the plutonium to be fabricated into MOX fuel elements and shipped to Japan in the coming months and years was produced by the irradiation of Australian uranium in Japanese power reactors. Liberal and Labor governments have given approval for the trade of Australian-obligated plutonium between Europe and Japan.

The Australian government's complicity reflects its pandering to uranium mining companies. This was hinted at by the Department of Foreign Affairs last year when it announced the government's extension of approval for plutonium transfers: "The European Union is an important provider of nuclear fuel services for countries purchasing Australian uranium and Japan is a major market for Australian uranium exports."

Also relevant is the love affair between the Howard government and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. ANSTO has a stockpile of nuclear waste it wants to ship to the US and the UK; thus it would be the height of hypocrisy to be protesting against the nuclear shipments of other countries and withdrawing consent for the trade of Australian-obligated plutonium. A leaked memo from the Australian delegation to the 1993 South Pacific Forum explicitly linked Australia's acquiescence to nuclear shipments passing through the region with Australia's plans to export its own spent nuclear fuel.

The Howard government cannot state the truth - that it has turned a blind eye to the manifold dangers of the plutonium trade in order to support the domestic nuclear industry. Thus the government parrots the fiction that reactor-grade plutonium cannot be used for weapons. The government also downplays the safety risks of the plutonium trade and will continue to do so despite the failure to carry out safety checks and the falsification of records in Japan last year and in the UK this year.

As Jean McSorley from Greenpeace International argued in the July 1996 edition of Chain Reaction, "There are those naive, cynical or ignorant enough to think Australia's role in the nuclear industry enhances its international standing. That's not true. This country should stand alongside the weapons states and others who have contaminated the planet, and be charged with aiding and abetting criminal activities."

The first of two British ships carrying mixed plutonium/uranium oxide fuel (MOX) for use in Japanese nuclear reactors unloaded its cargo on September 27. The second ship was expected to reach another Japanese port several days later.

The first ship was met by a demonstration from Japanese environmentalists and Greenpeace. Three inflatables, launched from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, carried protesters bearing banners in Japanese that read: "Plutonium Kills". The Arctic Sunrise was surrounded by 10 Japanese Maritime Safety Agency ships carrying commandos in full riot equipment.

In recent weeks, a scandal has erupted over the failure of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) to carry out safety checks on MOX scheduled to be shipped to Japan later this year.

Few have been satisfied by "assurances" from BNFL and Kansai Electric Power Company that British-produced MOX due to be loaded into the Takahama nuclear power station is safe. BNFL and Kansai have conducted a review of quality and safety related data, relying on statistical analysis rather than physical examination of the fuel.

Sanae Shida, executive director of Greenpeace Japan, said, "Assurances based upon a review of existing paper work conducted by two companies with vested interests in claiming the fuel is safe cannot be taken seriously. There has been no independent safety assessment following the revelation two weeks ago that BNFL by-passed vital safety checks at its MOX demonstration facility in Sellafield (England) when producing MOX for Kansai. BNFL and Kansai cannot be permitted to be both judge and jury in this scandal."

The scandal revolves around the failure of BNFL to check the size of MOX fuel pellets contained within fuel rods, which are then bound into assemblies ready to load into a power reactor.

Another concern is the distribution of plutonium oxide that makes up around 5% of the MOX fuel, the rest being uranium oxide. According to a report from the UK-based Oxford Research Group (ORG), European MOX manufacturers are failing to adequately test the distribution of plutonium in MOX, and thereby reducing safety margins.

The ORG report states that if the plutonium is not evenly spread within the fuel pellets, then the effect on the reactor physics and the integrity of the fuel elements could have disastrous consequences. If plutonium accumulates on the pellet surface, this could lead to the formation of 'hot spots' which could cause fuel elements to rupture. Uneven distribution would also complicate reactor physics making behaviour of the reactor core difficult to predict and therefore control.

The ORG report concludes that MOX production technology is fatally flawed and that overcoming these flaws would be hopelessly uneconomic.

A string of accidents at Japanese nuclear plants has led to growing public opposition to the nuclear industry. In August, an opinion poll conducted on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office revealed that 70% of Japanese people are concerned about possible nuclear accidents, while 67% supported introducing alternative energy sources and 60% wanted to see greater efforts made in energy conservation.

The 8th conference of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific forum, meeting in Tahiti on September 25, condemned Japan for its "irresponsible plutonium plan, which is causing potentially hazardous effects on our environment and nuclear arms proliferation problems."

The conference called for the immediate halt to the reprocessing of Japanese spent nuclear fuel and fabrication of MOX in the UK, France and other countries. A resolution was passed committing delegates to lobby for the strengthening of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, which is not strong enough to disallow the passage of nuclear shipments through the exclusive economic zones of Pacific islands.

South Pacific Forum countries released a statement in the first week of October challenging Japan, France and the UK over the shipment of plutonium reactor fuel and nuclear waste through the Pacific. The statement calls for comprehensive liability and compensation schemes to cover nuclear shipments through the region. It also calls for prior notification of the passage of nuclear shipments

Eighty shipments of plutonium mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and 200 shipments of highly radioactive material from Europe to Japan are proposed over the next 10 years.

Australia also intends to send spent nuclear fuel to France, and to ship nuclear waste returns through the region over the coming 50 years. One way shipments of spent fuel from Australia to the USA are also planned.

The South Pacific Forum statement says that ships used to transport nuclear materials should be of the highest standard. Australia uses general cargo carriers for its spent nuclear fuel shipments, but other countries use purpose built ships for this purpose.

Jean McSorley, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace International, said, "Given the level of concern over nuclear shipments through the Pacific, we would have liked to have seen stronger language used by the South Pacific Forum. However, we suspect that both Australia and Japan, which both provide significant aid to the region, have been lobbying behind the scenes to prevent more strident criticism of the nuclear transports."

"Japan, Britain, France and Australia were all keen to play down the risk of accidents involving a MOX shipment. However, in the past two months, the British company involved admitted to falsifying safety checks on plutonium fuel produced for use in Japan. There has been the nuclear accident at Tokaimura, which shows that the over-emphatic reassurances about safety cannot be trusted," McSorley said.

Pacific islanders are organising to try to stop the passage of plutonium reactor fuel from Europe to Japan through south Pacific waters. Two ships carrying mixed uranium/plutonium "MOX" fuel will pass through the Tasman Sea in late August or early September, then through the Exclusive Economic Zones of Pacific island nations. The Fiji based Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC), which is the Secretariat of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement, says that Japan, France and Britain are refusing to discuss compensation in the event of an accident, and have failed to conduct detailed environmental risk assessments.

Losena Salabula, from the PCRC, said "We believe that South Pacific governments should work together to end all nuclear shipments through our region. Currently, these shipments of plutonium fuel are not banned by the Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, or the 1995 Waigani Convention on hazardous wastes. We call on the sixteen member governments of the South Pacific Forum to convene a review conference of the Rarotonga Treaty, to strengthen its provisions against nuclear shipments and nuclear waste dumping on land. We also believe that parties to the Waigani Convention should strengthen its provisions, to place pressure on Japan, Britain and France to halt these shipments", Salabula said.

The 1985 Rarotonga Treaty banned the testing, production or deployment of nuclear weapons, and the dumping of nuclear waste, in the south Pacific. The Treaty allows for the establishment of a consultative committee for the purpose of "consultation and co-operation on any matter arising in relation to this Treaty or for reviewing its operation". A consultative committee must be convened "at the request of any Party". Thus it would be possible for any Pacific island government to ask for the Committee to be convened to address the topic of plutonium fuel shipments to Japan.

The PCRC is also calling for the Waigani Convention - also known as the Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes - to be strengthened to stop transboundary shipments of plutonium.

Salabula said, "In September, the United Nations will be holding a special session on Small Island Developing States. Japan, Britain and France will be shipping plutonium through our waters at the same time. This shows their contempt for the clear wish of Pacific island people - we want to be nuclear-free."

Action could be taken at this year's South Pacific Forum meeting in Palau. However Noel Levi, secretary general of the South Pacific Forum Secretariat, said the Secretariat had been unable to convince or compel France, Japan or the UK to begin discussions on a liability regime to compensate the region in the event that an accident impacts on tourism, fisheries and the environment.

The one South Pacific Forum member which habitually turns a blind eye to nuclear shipments through the Pacific is Australia. A leaked memo from the Australian delegation to the South Pacific Forum meeting in October 1993 revealed that the Labor government was lobbying to prevent a ban on the transport of nuclear waste through the region. Australian governments have shipped nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights reactor overseas in the past and plan to do so again in future.

In a point scoring exercise which went wrong, Labor shadow ministers Laurie Brereton and Nick Bolkus released a statement on July 25 expressing concerns about the environmental risks of "high level nuclear waste shipments through the South Pacific region." In fact it is MOX fuel, not waste, that is being shipped to Japan. Predictably, Brereton and Bolkus did not condemn the shipments, merely calling on the Howard government to commission a scientific review of the environmental risks. The Labor government gave permission for a 1992 shipment of plutonium from Europe to Japan, and it arranged a shipment of spent fuel from the Lucas Heights reactor to Scotland which took place in 1996.

Sellafield MOX Plant was given a "justification for the manufacture of MOX fuel" on 3 October 2001. The decision had been delayed by the US terrorist attacks. BNFL must still obtain "consent for plutonium commissioning" before the plant can start full operation.

(555.5319) WISE Amsterdam - The Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) was completed in 1996 but has lain idle ever since while five separate rounds of public consultations were held. The Environment Agency organized the first two public consultations after BNFL applied for permission for the gaseous and liquid discharges arising from the plant's operation. However, although the Environment Agency gave a positive recommendation, it passed the final decision back to the government (see WISE News Communique 502.4958, "Sellafield MOX plant decision passed to government").

The government then organized its own public consultation. However, while the results of the first consultation exercise in 1999 were being considered, the MOX falsification scandal broke. (see WISE News Communique 518.5083, "BNFL fiddling MOX quality control data"). The scandal caused massive damage to customer confidence and forced BNFL to revise their economic case for the plant. This meant that a further public consultation was necessary.

Shortly after announcing this public consultation on the revised economic case, the government announced that it had appointed consultants Arthur D Little to conduct a confidential review of the economic case. This led to accusations that information was being hidden from the public.

Friends of the Earth UK said they would launch a judicial review of the government's decision (see box "SMP judicial review" in WISE News Communique 549.5276, "Sellafield: THORP customers threaten to withdraw business; discharge levels 20 time German standards"). The government's response was to publish a "Public Domain" version of the consultants' report and launch yet another round of public consultation on 27 July 2001, lasting for four weeks. An announcement of the decision was expected a few weeks later.

Decision announced too early in the press

The UK's Financial Times twice carried articles quoting government sources as saying that start-up of the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) was about to be approved. The first announced 14 September as a possible date for the announcement. The second, on 20 September, even carried the title "BNFL gets go-ahead for Mox recycling facility". However, no go-ahead was forthcoming until 3 October.

The reason for the false information from government sources is unclear, though a subsequent article attributed it to the reluctance of the environment minister Michael Meacher to make the announcement. In the end, the announcement was made on a news release on the web site of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The news release did not mention the environment minister.

Hidden amongst everything else at Sellafield

However, looking at the government's decision letter it is clear that the 11 September terrorist attacks played a role in delaying the decision. Following the attacks, the Office of Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) was asked to re-examine the security aspects. Regarding the risk of aircraft crashes, the OCNS said "The SMP is one of many plants within a large industrial site and has no special features which would single it out from others on the Sellafield site". No analysis of what might happen if an aircraft did crash into the plant was mentioned. However, the effects would clearly be much more serious if the plant was put into operation and so contained plutonium.

Regarding proliferation issues, the decision letter pointed out that Sellafield already has large amounts of separated plutonium in the form of plutonium oxide powder. The letter claimed that if it is not converted to MOX then it would one day have to be shipped elsewhere for MOX conversion or else back to the countries of origin as plutonium oxide, which is more attractive to potential terrorists than MOX pellets. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, however, said that the "government puts terror groups a step nearer to nuclear bombs" with its announcement.

BNFL fails to slip in Magnox plutonium

In BNFL's revised business case, the possibility of using the relatively small amount of plutonium derived from reprocessing Japanese Magnox spent fuel to make MOX was added. However, this possibility had not been considered by either the Environment Agency or the Health and Safety Executive in their assessments, which only considered plutonium from the Thorp plant. As a result, the Secretaries of State decided that separate consideration would be needed to decide whether BNFL should be authorized to use the SMP for the purpose of manufacturing MOX fuel from Magnox-derived plutonium.

More legal challenges ahead?

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are seeking urgent legal advice and may mount a further legal challenge. The principle on which the "justification" was issued is found in Article 6 of the Euratom directive 96/29: the economic, social or other benefits must compensate for the health detriments of radiation and other detriments, including costs. However, since the 472 million pounds (US$680 million) of taxpayers' money spent so far was ignored in the calculations, the "net present value" of 158 million pounds (US$228 million) claimed for operating the plant is misleading. Also, Friends of the Earth say that there is insufficient evidence that potential customers will materialize.

Friends of the Earth Scotland also expressed concerns that the decision would make the building of new nuclear power plants in the UK more likely (see WISE News Communique 553.5305, "UK: Energy Review to be pre-empted by Scottish reactor plan?").

The Republic of Ireland is already mounting a legal challenge under the OSPAR convention (see WISE News Communique 550, "In Brief"). However, following the Defra announcement, Joe Jacob, Ireland's minister responsible for nuclear safety, said that this action was "now largely irrelevant". He said that the decision to go ahead with SMP "defies logic", and Ireland is considering taking additional action under European Union or United Nations law.

Finally, it is worth noting that the MOX plant cannot start full operation until BNFL obtains "consent for plutonium commissioning" from the Health and Safety Executive.

Sources: Defra news release, 3 October 2001; Defra/Department of Health decision letter, 3 October 2001; Financial Times, 14, 20 and 22 September 2001; BBC, 3 October 2001; Greenpeace UK press release, 3 October 2001; FoE Scotland press release, 3 October 2001; Irish Times, 4 October 2001; Reuters, 4 October 2001
Contact: Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE), 98 Church St, Barrow, Cumbria LA14 2HJ, UK
Tel +44 1229 833851. Fax +44 1229 812239
Email: [email protected] Web: www.corecumbria.co.uk

Once terrorists have the nuclear fuel, building a bomb is child's play.

TERRORISTS could easily make a crude atomic bomb from MOX fuel produced at British Nuclear Fuels' new plant in north-west England, according to a confidential report submitted to the British government and seen by New Scientist.

The report comes as the state-owned company is trying to get the government's go-ahead to make MOX, a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide, for reactor operators in Europe and Japan.

Although the MOX plant, at Sellafield in Cumbria, was completed in 1996, the government has postponed authorising its start-up because of doubts over its economic viability. Last week, as a fourth consultation exercise on the MOX plant ended, Friends of the Earth lodged papers at the High Court in London calling for a judicial review of the consultation, accusing the British government of skewing the process in favour of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). The environmental group alleges that the £462 million invested in the plant so far has been disregarded in calculating its financial prospects, and that the results of an independent audit have been withheld from the public.

But now the confidential report submitted to the government highlights another potential problem for the plant. Written by Frank Barnaby, a physicist who worked at the nuclear weapons laboratory at Aldermaston, Berkshire, in the 1950s and later headed the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it spells out exactly how easy it is to make MOX fuel into a bomb.

Barnaby says that terrorists intent on mass destruction would need no more technical know-how than that used to make the Lockerbie bomb. The expertise required is less than the equivalent skill used in 1995 by the Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, to prepare sarin nerve gas for release into the Tokyo subway, he says.

It would be "sheer irresponsibility" for the government to allow the new plant to open, Barnaby warns, as the theft of MOX fuel pellets would then become a "terrifying possibility". His report, which was commissioned by the Oxford Research Group, an independent body of scientists studying nuclear issues, comes in the wake of mounting concern about the poor security arrangements for radioactive materials worldwide (New Scientist, 26 May, p 10).

Barnaby reveals three ways of chemically separating the plutonium dioxide from the uranium dioxide in MOX fuel. One, involving lanthanum nitrate as a carrier, was used in 1941 by the atomic pioneer Glenn Seaborg at the University of Chicago. The other two methods-one of which is currently used at the University of Kiev in Ukraine-depend on reactions with resins. The chemistry is less sophisticated than that required for the illegal manufacture of designer drugs, he says. All the details terrorists need are in the published literature or on the Internet, says Barnaby.

A primitive bomb could be made with 35 kilograms of plutonium dioxide, or terrorists could use hydrofluoric acid to precipitate out the pure metal, Barnaby says. Only 13 kilograms of pure metal would be needed to create an explosion with a yield of 100 tonnes of TNT-50 times the size of the largest terrorist bomb to date, in Oklahoma City six years ago.

BNFL points out, however, that MOX fuel would be difficult to steal because it travels under armed guard. The security arrangements "are mature, comprehensive and robust", says a company spokeswoman. "We are 100 per cent confident in the physical protection measures we have."

The company points out that turning plutonium into MOX fuel and burning it in reactors could reduce the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation by cutting plutonium stockpiles. Some plutonium also has to be returned to foreign customers because they own it. The risk of MOX fuel falling into the hands of terrorists is "minimal", BNFL insists.

An atomic explosion in a city centre is "everyone's worst nightmare", says Frans Berkhout, a nuclear expert from SPRU (formerly the Science Policy Research Unit) at the University of Sussex, Brighton. But although turning fresh MOX fuel into a bomb is "theoretically possible", he thinks that in practice terrorists might find cheaper and easier ways of causing mass destruction.