Are jobs the only good reason to turn on the new Sellafield plant? In an industry rife with sensitive issues, the plant raises a particularly tricky one: what can be done with plutonium, a byproduct of nuclear reactors and dismantled nuclear weapons? The new plant offers an alternative to long-term storage: it blends the plutonium with uranium and produces pellets of “mixed oxide fuel,” or Mox, which can fuel other reactors. To its proponents, the Mox plant is a tidy solution: rather than stockpile plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons that terrorists and rogue nations covet, why not turn it into a more benign fuel for power plants? Detractors say making Mox presents its own security risks, and it’s too costly besides. Despite the pains authorities took to mollify the public, the plant has attracted a flurry of protests. “Plutonium is an embarrassment for the whole industry,” says Greenpeace campaigner Mark Johnston. “Mox is just a way they can sweep it under the carpet for a decade or so.”
On its face, the case for Mox appears sound. Britain has long imported spent nuclear fuels from countries including Germany, Switzerland and Japan for reprocessing–separating it into plutonium, uranium and some leftover waste. While these countries ponder how to use or dispose of these materials, they continue to accumulate at Sellafield. Now Sellafield can offer to return the material in a handy form for fuel. The Mox plant takes the reprocessed plutonium and uranium, dries it, pulverizes it and compresses it into ceramic pellets. Plutonium is only 5 percent of Mox by volume, but it packs a wallop–one gram contains as much energy as two tons of coal. “This is a naturally occurring material and virtually free,” says Allen. “By returning the fuel to our customers as Mox, we are closing the loop.”
The Bush administration this month announced that it favors converting plutonium from dismantled warheads to Mox, and Russia is headed down the same route. The technology is proven–France, Europe’s cheerleader for nuclear power, is a keen supporter–and reliable. Says John Rich of the World Nuclear Association: “This has to be an excellent way to destroy plutonium from cold-war nuclear arsenals while getting the benefits of vast amounts of clean energy.”
The opponents of the new Mox plant aren’t easily convinced. BNFL is one of Britain’s least-popular companies, and it has enemies abroad as well. The 1,000-acre Sellafield site stands right beside the Irish Sea on a bleak patch of England’s coast. For the last 16 years the Irish government has been campaigning hard against its radioactive discharges into the sea, especially from the reprocessing plant. The opening of the Mox plant will not only add to the discharges, say the Irish, it poses extra security risks as well. Determined to see Sellafield closed, Ireland is now pursuing its case before international tribunals with support from Norway and other Nordic countries whose waters are also affected.
Sellafield’s biggest problem may be economic. In the early, heady years of nuclear power, planners feared a shortage of uranium. One response was the attempt to develop “fast breeder” reactors, which produced a great deal of plutonium as a byproduct, but which could never meet efficiency targets. These days uranium is cheap and plentiful– much cheaper even than Mox. Energy markets are competitive: “why would a utility want to use a fuel that’s expensive?” says Martin Forwood of CORE, a local group that’s fought for the closure of Sellafield. He reckons that the only Mox customers will be such countries as Germany and Switzerland that are bound by long-term contracts to take home their reprocessed waste. Japan is the biggest potential market for Sellafield’s Mox–and the biggest source of worry. The Japanese have been leery of Sellafield since 1999, when workers at its pilot Mox plant were found to have faked quality-control data concerning a trial run converting nuclear material from Japan into Mox. A government report later blasted Sellafield for systematic management failures and threatened to close parts of the site. Even the most optimistic bean counters don’t think the Mox plant will come close to recouping its £470 million start-up costs.
The current concern over terrorists isn’t likely to make things any easier for the Mox advocates. The Mox plant would send more plutonium-rich materials to and from Britain via rail and ship. Mindful of the risks, BNFL uses armored ships with a squad of police aboard for the six-week trip to Japan. “In the current world situation it seems crazy to be spreading plutonium around,” says Frank Barnaby of the Oxford Research Group, which opposes nuclear proliferation. Since the Mox plant would consume Sellafield’s stocks of plutonium at a slow pace, it’s not even a particularly good way of passing the plutonium buck. Given the political realities of nuclear-materials disposal, that may be good enough.
