Japan's Nuclear Disaster Raises Concerns About MOX Fuel

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today - Monday, April 11, 2011:

New Doubts About Turning Plutonium Into a Fuel - Jo Becker and William Broad in The New York Times [link]

• On a tract of government land along the Savannah River in South Carolina, an army of workers is building one of the nation’s most ambitious nuclear enterprises in decades: a plant that aims to safeguard at least 43 tons of weapons-grade plutonium by mixing it into fuel for commercial power reactors.
• The plant at the Savannah River Site, once devoted to making plutonium for weapons, would now turn America’s lethal surplus to peaceful ends. Blended with uranium, the usual reactor fuel, the plutonium would be transformed into a new fuel called mixed oxide, or mox.
• But 11 years after the government awarded a construction contract, the cost of the project has soared to nearly $5 billion. The vast concrete and steel structure is a half-finished hulk, and the government has yet to find a single customer, despite offers of lucrative subsidies.
• The most likely customer, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has been in discussions with the federal Department of Energy about using mox to replace a third of the regular uranium fuel in several reactors — a far greater concentration than at the stricken Japanese reactor, Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit No. 3, where 6 percent of the core is made out of mox.
• But the T.V.A. now says it will delay any decision until officials can see how the mox performed at Fukushima Daiichi, including how hot the fuel became and how badly it was damaged.
• Obama administration officials say that mox is safe, and they remain confident that the project will attract customers once it is further along and can guarantee a steady fuel supply.
• A cheaper alternative, encasing it in glass, was canceled in 2002 by President George W. Bush’s administration.

What’s on Deck re: Nuclear Arms Reductions? - Kingston Reif in “Nukes of Hazard” a Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Blog [link]

• Friday was the one-year anniversary of the signature of the New START treaty. I didn’t have any vodka around to celebrate with so I drank some Scoth instead.
• Since the treaty entered into force in early February, the two sides have made their first data exchange and began exhibitions (the Russians had a look at a U.S. B-1 bomber, and U.S. had a look at the Russian RS-24 ICBM). And as of April 5, each side is now allowed to begin on-site inspections.
• The implementation of the treaty seems to be moving ahead smoothly, but for some reason the U.S. and Russia think it’s an awesome idea not to release either aggregate numbers of warheads and delivery vehicles or a much more detailed Memorandum of Understanding, both of which were available under START I.
• Last week in the International Herald Tribune, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called on Washington and Moscow to build on the momentum created by New START “and take new actions to reduce nuclear risk and shape a safer world.”
• They propose four next steps, the first being the initiation of early negotiations to further reduce each sides arsenal of deployed strategic warheads to 1,000 apiece. While these negotiations proceed, Albright and Ivanov suggest that the U.S. and Russia reach the treaty’s limits…by 2014 or 2015, well before the implementation deadline of 2018.
• They also note that since the number of Russia’s deployed nuclear forces is expected to fall well below the 1,550 deployed delivery vehicle limit, the U.S. should reduce to 1,300 deployed warheads, so long as Russia does not build up above that number.
• This schedule doesn’t have to be set in stone. But it will take direction from the President and support (or indifference) from the Pentagon to reach the New START limits ahead of schedule.

One Year after New START’s Signature - Steve Pifer for The Brookings Institution [link]

• Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev met in Prague one year ago, on April 8, 2010, to sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).
• As implementation proceeds, the question now is: how should the United States and Russia move forward on next steps? Writing in the April 6 International Herald Tribune, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called for early negotiations to further reduce U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces down to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.
• Obama stated last year that the next round of talks should include non-deployed strategic warheads and non-strategic nuclear weapons along with deployed strategic forces. That would mean, for the first time, U.S.-Russian negotiations on all their nuclear warheads.
• It is not clear, however, how quickly those negotiations will begin. Moscow appears hesitant. Russian officials have said that a list of other questions—which include missile defense, long-range precision-guided conventional strike weapons and conventional force limits in Europe, among others—should be dealt with first.
• These are serious questions, but a sequential approach could mean a long delay in new nuclear arms talks. It would be better to tackle these questions in parallel.

Russia: Fuel Loading Resumes at Bushehr - Ali Akbar Dareini and Jim Heintz for The Associated Press [link]

• The Russian company that built Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant said Friday it has started reloading fuel into the reactor, more than a month after the fuel was ordered removed because of contamination concerns.
• The Atomstroyexport company said in a statement that the reactor will be reassembled "shortly," but did not give further details of when it might be put into service. Fuel rod insertion began in October, at which time Iran said that the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor would begin transmitting electricity to Iranian cities by December.
• But in late February, Russia ordered that fuel be removed because of concerns that metal particles might be contaminating fuel assemblies. It said damaged elements were found in a cooling pump at the plant, raising the possibility that metal particles could get on the fuel assemblies.
• In 1992, Iran signed a $1 billion deal with Russia to complete the project and work began in 1995.Under the contract, Bushehr was originally scheduled to come on stream in July 1999.
• Foreign intelligence reports have said the control systems at Bushehr were penetrated by Stuxnet, a malicious software designed to infiltrate computer systems. Iran has all along maintained that Stuxnet was only found on several laptops belonging to plant employees and didn't affect the facility's control systems.

Ex-U.N. Panel Head Worries About Another North Korean Nuke Test - Lee Michael Katz for Global Security Newswire [link]

• The international community is faced with the threat of "dangerous" instability in North Korea and the potential for the unpredictable regime to carry out new provocations, according to a former U.N. panel chief.
• Masahiko Asada of Japan is the former chairman of the U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea. The legal expert, who headed the panel from 2009 to 2010, said he is concerned by the "many rumors" that North Korea might conduct its third nuclear test at some point.
• Asada also said he is also concerned about a potential non-nuclear "dramatic incident" as North Korea transitions to a new young leader. Kim Jong Un is believed to be being groomed to take over for his father, dictator Kim Jong Il
• In an interview with Global Security Newswire, Asada also explored issues that include North Korea's potential nuclear weapons capability, the possibility of new U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang and the regime's efforts to evade sanctions.

EVENT: After Fukushima: Rethinking the Case for Nuclear Power's Expansion

Date: Monday, April 11, 2011
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Location: Russell Senate Office Building, SR-485
Speaker: Henry Sokolski, Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Presider: Charles D. Ferguson, President, Federation of American Scientists

• The recent nuclear accidents in Japan are testing the nuclear industry's call on our government to expand nuclear power not just at home, but to many more nations. How should our government weigh the claimed economic, safety, environmental and security benefits and costs that a significant proliferation of nuclear power to many more nations might bring? Come join us to hear and discuss a presentation on these issues and more by Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
• To RSVP, contact Shannon Traylor (shannon@npolicy.org or 571-970-3187)