Notes
Canada. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
"Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," May 1996;
"CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," September 13, 1996;
and, with Natural Resources Canada,
"MOX -- Questions and Answers," December 12, 1996, esp. 2-3 on cost.
-
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is hereafter cited as DFAIT, Natural Resources Canada as NRCAN.
As quoted in a letter, December 16, 1996,
from Anne McLellan, Minister of Natural Resources Canada,
to Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
on CANDU MOX disposition.
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," May 1966, 2;
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 2 and 5;
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," December 16, 1996, 2;
and DFAIT, "MOX Fuel Press Lines," no date, 1.
-
Further references to "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative" are to the December 16, 1996 version.
DFAIT, "MOX Fuel Press Lines," 1;
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 1; and
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 1 and 5-6.
Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy,
Advisory Committee on Competition in Ontario's Electricity System,
A Framework for Competition
(Toronto: Ministry of Environment and Energy, May 1996), 11.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 1.
Although figures for the size of the Russian stockpile of weapons plutonium differ significantly, this study uses 150 tonnes as a reference amount.
Thomas Cochran cites 150-170 tonnes, of which some 115-130 was fabricated into weapons components, the remainder being in the form of process waste. Thomas B. Cochran, "Progress in U.S./Russian Transparency and Fissile Material Disposition," paper presented at the 5th ISADARCO Beijing Seminar on Arms Control, 12-15 November 1996 (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defence Council, 1996), 6.
Cochran favours the upper limit and also notes that Russia possesses some 30 tonnes of weapons-usable separated civil plutonium, which would bring the Russian Federation to 200 tonnes of separated plutonium. Matthew Bunn also cites the amount of 200 tonnes (including 30 tonnes of separated reactor-grade plutonium). Matthew Bunn, "The Case for a Dual-Track Approach -- And How to Move Forward from Here," unpublished paper, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June 11, 1997, 8-9.
A lower estimate of 150 tonnes is to be had in Anatoli S. Diakov, "Disposition of Separated Plutonium: An Overview of the Russian Program," paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Radioactive Waste Management and Environmental Remediation, September 3-8, Berlin, Germany, cited in Cochran, "Progress," 6.
David Albright and his colleagues estimate an amount of 131 tonnes, plus or minus 25 tonnes, for weapons-grade plutonium in the former Soviet states as of the end of 1993; they also identify 26.5 tonnes of separated civil plutonium in Russia as of that date. David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies (Oxford: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1997), l58 and 445.
The figure of 150 tonnes weapons plutonium is used as a reference amount in this study in the expectation that the Russian Federation will prefer to withhold its 30 tonnes of separated reactor-grade plutonium for civil power use, and that it will retain a further quantity of weapons plutonium scraps and residues for purification for civil use. A maximum of 200 tonnes of Russian weapons-usable plutonium is therefore reduced to 150 tonnes, of which 100 tonnes could be subject to disposition to reach equal levels of Russian-U.S. retained WPu.
Joint United States/Russian Plutonium Disposition Study, September 1996 (Washington, D. C.: Department of Energy, 1996), ExSum-2.
-
This source is hereafter cited as Joint Study.
United States General Accounting Office,
Department of Energy Plutonium Needs,
Costs and Management Programs
(Washington, D.C.: GAO, April 1997), 6.
-
The U.S. General Accounting Office is hereafter cited as GAO.
International Experts Meeting on
Safe and Effective Management of Fissile Materials
Designated as No Longer Required for Defence Purposes,
Paris, October 28-31, 1996, "Conclusions," no source or date, 1-2.
Jack Mendelsohn and Craig Cerniello,
"The Arms Control Agenda at the Helsinki Summit,"
Arms Control Today 27: 1 (March 1997), 16-18.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 6; and
Joint Study, WR-6.
As of July 1997, DFAIT's estimate is that the Bruce B reactors are each capable of irradiating 1.5 tonnes of weapons MOX annually, making for a potential throughput of 6 tonnes per year if sufficient CANDU MOX fuel fabricating capacity were available.
Telephone conversation with A. Ian Smith of DFAIT, July 7, 1997.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 3;
and DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 6.
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 4.
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 2.
See also United States Department of Energy,
Office of Fissile Materials Disposition,
Technical Summary Report for
Surplus Weapons-Usable Plutonium Disposition,
July 17, 1996 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Energy, 1996), ES-1.
-
The U.S. Department of Energy is hereafter cited as DOE.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 1. See also
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 4; and
Joint Study, WR-8.
United States Department of Energy,
Office of Fissile Materials Disposition,
Record of Decision for the
Storage and Disposition of Weapons-Usable Fissile Materials
Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement,
January 14, 1997 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Energy, 1997), 19-21.
John P. Holdren, "Work with Russia," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 53: 2 (March/April 1997), 43.
The Russian Federation is also leery of immobilization of the U.S. excess on grounds that the United States would be able to recover it more rapidly for weapons use than from weapons plutonium degraded by irradiation. Bunn, "The Case for a Dual-Track Approach," 2.
It is also the case that the United States has thus far been able to structure the START treaties to give it a substantial advantage over the Russian Federation in the event that Cold War nuclear arsenals were quickly to be reconstituted.
On "uploading," see Frank von Hippel, "Paring Down the Arsenal," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 53: 3 (May/June 1997), 34.
Edwin S. Lyman and Paul Leventhal, "Bury the Stuff," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 53: 2 (March/April 1997), 48.
John P. Holdren et al.,
"Excess Weapons Plutonium:
How to Reduce a Clear and Present Danger,"
Arms Control Today 26: 9 (November/December 1996), 6.
The greater estimate is from William F. Naughton,
"Disposition of Weapons-Grade Plutonium in
Commercial Light-Water Reactors,"
Nuclear News 39: 9 (August 1996), 26.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 1.
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 2.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 2.
Letter, August 30, 1996, from R.L. Gadsby of AECL to the Office of Fissile Materials Disposition, U.S. Department of Energy, 3.
Ibid., 3; and DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 9.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 3.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 9.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 4.
DFAIT, "MOX Fuel Press Line," 2.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 3.
DFAIT, "MOX Plutonium Fuel Initiative," 6.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 4.
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 2-3.
AECL Technologies Inc., "Team CANDU Submission" to the U.S. Department of Energy, response to expression of interest number 3508652, no date.
Mark Hibbs, "Influence-Buying Concern Delays Bonggil Vendor Choice Until June," Nucleonics Week 38: 16 (April 17, 1997), 15.
In the past, South Korea has expressed interest in providing weapons plutonium disposition services to the Russian Federation, using CANDU reactors. Hibbs, "South Korea Could Provide Vessel for Pakistan's PWR," ibid., 36: 38 (September 21, 1995), 2.
"BNFL, Inc. Group to Lead Whiteshell Privatization," Nuclear News 40: 7 (June 1997), 51.
The remarks were made on CTV, January 15, 1955 by David Bock.
Asked, "Storing waste from other countries?" he replied, "Well, possibly. We sell uranium to other countries. And if you use the argument that we have an obligation to look after that, then it would follow that you could do that." Then asked, "So it would be closing the loop -- you sell the uranium and you take the waste back at the end?" Bock replied, "That's precisely it."
This is an excerpt from "Requirement for Additional Information on Matters Related to Atomic Energy of Canada's Environmental Impact Statement on the Concept for Disposal of Canada's Nuclear Fuel Waste," submitted by the Saskatchewan Environmental Society to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's Panel reviewing the concept for disposal of nuclear fuel wastes, August 8, 1995.
Stephen Strauss, "Nuclear Fusion Project May Fizzle," Globe and Mail, December 6, 1996.
Nuclear Budget Watch 1997 (Ottawa: Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, 1997), 1.
George Lermer, "The Dismal Economics of CANDU," Policy Options 17: 3 (April 1996), 18.
By way of comparison, nuclear power stations account for 12 percent of Russian electricity generation and 22 percent in the United States. Robert E. Ebel, "Energy Futures," Washington Quarterly 19: 4 (Autumn 1996), 84 and 85.
Comparative figures for reactors in operation and reactors under construction for selected countries are as follows:
- Canada 21:0,
France 57:3,
Germany 20:0,
India 10:4,
Japan 53:2,
Russia 29:4,
S. Korea 11:5,
UK 35:0,
USA 110:1.
The U.S. Department of Energy anticipates 0.2 percent annual growth in global nuclear power generation 1990-2010, most of it in non-OECD countries. U.S. Department of Energy, "International Energy Outlook," Washington Quarterly 19: 4 (Autumn 1996), 79.
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Ontario Hydro's Atomic problem Child," Globe and Mail, July 20,1996;
James Rusk, "Ontario Hydro's Nuclear Division Blasted on Safety,' ibid., September 7, 1996;
Mittlestaedt, "Report Cites Accident Risk at Nuclear Stations, " ibid., February 26, 1997;
Mittlestaedt, " Nuclear Plants Will Close If Problems Can't Be Fixed," ibid., February 27, 1996; and
Mittlestaedt, "Spread of Contamination Found at Pickering," ibid., March 1, 1997.
Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy, Framework for Competition, 11.
Terence Corcoran, "Hydro Titanic Still Sinking," Globe and Mail, December 13, 1996; and
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Ontario Hydro May Have to Cut Debt by Half," ibid., February 20, 1997.
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Ontario Hydro Hires U.S. Nuclear Experts," ibid., January 10, 1997.
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Ontario Hydro Enlists Help of U.S. Experts," ibid., January 15, 1997.
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Ontario Hydro Writes Off 2.5-Billion, " ibid., January 15, 1997.
Barrie McKenna, "Rust Problems Plague Reactors," ibid., January 11, 1997.
Ray Silver, "With Nine Nuclear Units Down Ontario Hydro Hoping Others Can Meet Load," Nucleonics Week 38: 20 (May 15, 1997).
David Albright et al., Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, 396; and Arjun Makhijani, "Plutonium as an Energy Source," Energy and Security, No. 1, 1996, 5.
Energy and Security is the newsletter of the Institute for Energy and Environmental research, Takoma Park MD.
Letter, November 1, 1996, from John D. Holum, Director U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, to Hazel O'Leary, Secretary of Energy, on excess U.S. weapons plutonium disposition; and
Edwin S. Lyman, "Weapons Plutonium: Just Can It," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52: 6 (November/December 1996), 48-52.
Barnaby J. Feder, "The Nuclear Power Puzzle," New York Times, January 3, 1997.
Matthew L. Wald, "Agency to Pursue Two Plans to Shrink Plutonium Supply," ibid., December 10, 1996.
DOE, Technical Summary Report, ES-9.
Dave Airozo, "Troubled Commonwealth Unfit for MOX Mission, Opponents Say," Nucleonics Week 38: 21 (May 22, 1997),1; and
Airozo, "With Decision Announced, Real Work on U.S./Russian Pu Disposal Begins," ibid., December 12, 1996, 7.
Lyman, "Weapons Plutonium," 50; and
Lyman and Leventhal, "Bury the Stuff," 47.
Holdren "Work with Russia," 42.
Graham T. Allison et al.,
Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy:
Containing the Threat of
Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material,
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996),
esp. Appendix A, "The Russian Nuclear Archipelago," by Owen R. Cote.
Ibid., 108, 187; Joint Study, ExSum-1 and WR-9; Holdren, "Work with Russia," 43-44; and Holdren et al., "Excess Weapons Plutonium," 7.
Christian Kuppers and Michael Sailer,
The MOX Industry or the Civilian Use of Plutonium:
Risks and Health Effects Associated
with the Production and Use of MOX
(Darmstadt: International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War, 1994), 23.
Holdren et al., "Excess Weapons Plutonium," 5-6; and Lyman and Leventhal, "Bury the Stuff,", 48.
Kuppers and Sailer, The MOX Industry, 24.
"Spent Fuel Waste Transport Arrives at Gorleben," Nuclear News 40: 5 (April 1997), 47. Previous clashes occurred in May and November 1996.
Kuppers and Sailer, The MOX Industry, 36.
"Pu Disposition: Options Discussed at Paris Meeting," Nuclear News 39: 13 (December 1996), 36.
On the French and German proposal, see International Experts' Meeting, "Conclusions," 14.
The plutonium separation plant at Ozersk ( previously referred to as Chelyabinsk-65) produces some 2 tonnes of plutonium annually, which is not far off the 1.3 tonnes of weapons MOX that would be manufactured by the proposed new facility which would be located nearby. Thus, while weapons plutonium would be converted into MOX fuel at a new plant, several miles away an older Minatom facility would continue to separate larger amounts of weapons-usable plutonium.
Some call this absurd, and rightly so.
Marvin Miller and Frank von Hippel, "Let's Reprocess the MOX Plan," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 53: 5 (July/August 1997), 16.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 2.
Lyman and Leventhal, "Bury the Stuff."
Joint Study, ExSum-1; and Holdren, "Work with Russia," 43-44.
International Experts Meeting, "Conclusions," 14.
Lyman and Leventhal, "Bury the Stuff," 48.
Cogema and Siemens are however said to be discussing with Minatom a procedure whereby they would assist in MOX fuel fabrication in Russia in return for Russian payment in the form of "low-cost uranium and enrichment services, which they would sell on the international market." Bunn, "Case for a Dual Track Approach," 7.
Alex Brall, "Ukraine Refuses to Participate in Russia-Iran Nuclear Project," Nucleonics Week 38: 18 (May 1, 1997), 7.
Kuppers and Sailer, The MOX Industry, 6-7; and Joint Study, WR-8.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 6.
Allison et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy, 23-48. For a contrary view, see Mark Hibbs, "Plutonium, Politics, and Panic," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50: 6 (November/December 1994), 25-31.
The likelihood of nuclear terrorism is questioned in Karl-Heinz Kamp, "An Overrated Nightmare," ibid., 52:4 (July/August 1996), 30-34.
Rose Gottemoeller, "Preventing a Nuclear Nightmare," Survival 38:2 (Summer 1996), 170-174.
Ibid., 173. On Iran, see David Albright, "A Iranian Bomb?" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 51: 4 (July/August 1995), 21-26.
"Factfile: U.S. and Soviet/Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces," Arms Control Today 27: 1 (March 1997), 30.
"Joint Statement on Parameters on Future Reductions in Nuclear Forces," ibid., 19.
Alton Frye, "Banning Ballistic Missiles," Foreign Affairs 75: 6 (November/December 1996), 103-105.
"Estimated Russian Stockpile, September 1996,"
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52: 5 (September/October 1996), 63; and
Nuclear Successor States of the Soviet Union;
Nuclear Weapon and Sensitive Export Status Report, Number 4
(Monterey: Monterey Institute of International Studies, May 1996), 17.
"Joint Statement on Parameters," 19; and
"Arms Control and the Helsinki Summit:
Issues and Obstacles in the Second Clinton Term,"
Arms Control Today 27: 1 (March 1997), 12.
Geoffrey York, "Russia Reserves First Use of Nuclear Arms,"
Globe and Mail, February 12, 1997;
and the remarks by John Steinbruner in
"Arms Control and the Helsinki Summit," 14-15.
"Estimated Russian Stockpile, September 1996," 63.
United States General Accounting Office,
"Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Status of Cooperative Threat Reduction Program"
(Washington, D.C., USGAO, September 1996), 7-12.
United States Department of Energy, Office of Fissile Materials,
Final Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment of
Weapons-Usable Fissile Material Storage and
Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives
(Washington, D.C.: Department of Energy, January 1997), 105.
Hibbs, "Influence-Buying," 15.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 1.
Cochran, "Progress in U.S./ Russian Transparency," 2.
All figures that follow are estimates from this source. Rounding of numbers accounts very largely for any numerical inconsistencies.
GAO, Department of Energy Plutonium Needs, Costs and Management Programs, 6.
Cochran, "Progress in U.S./Russian Transparency," 2.
Robert S. Norris and William M. Arkin,
"U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, July 1995,"
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 51: 4 (July/August 1995), 77-79, and
"U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, July 1997," Ibid. 53: 4 (July/August 1997), 62-63.
DFAIT and NRCAN, "MOX -- Questions and Answers," 5.
G. Trofimenko, "U.S. National Interests and Russia," International Affairs (Moscow) 42: 5/6 (1996), 49-68.
The commentary in this section owes much to my participation in the CANDU MOX stakeholders' retreat which took place outside of Toronto, October 17-18, 1996. A summary of the proceedings is available in Peter Gizewski, "The CANDU MOX Initiative: Report on a Stakeholders' Debate," which is available from the Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development, in Ottawa.
Martin Mittlestaedt, "Report Cites Accident Risk at Nuclear Stations," Globe and Mail, February 20, 1997.
DOE, Final Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment, 102.
Letter to the author from A. Ian Smith, DFAIT, June 25, 1997.
DOE, Final Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment, 102.
Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
DFAIT, "Plutonium MOX Fuel Initiative," 5.
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 1.
For the proposal, see Summary of the Environmental Impact Statement on the Concept for Disposal of Canada's Nuclear Fuel Waste (Toronto: AECL, September 1994).
Ray Silver, "Ontario Hydro Nuclear Eyes Pu Burning as a Way to Save Bruce-2," Nucleonics Week 35:51, December 22, 1994, 3-4.
Fred Roots,
"Radioactive Waste Disposal
-- Ethical and Environmental Considerations --
A Canadian Perspective,"
in Nuclear Energy Agency,
Environmental and Ethical Aspects of
Long-Lived Radioactive Waste Disposal
(Paris: OECD Documents, 1994), 71-93.
Government of Saugeen, "The Duluth Declaration," September 23, 1995.
"Canada May Take Plutonium," Globe and Mail, December 11, 1996; and
Anne McIlroy, "CANDU Sale Must Be Reviewed, Environmental Group Says in Suit," ibid., January 22, 1997.
Andrew Nikiforuk, 'The Nasty Game': The Failure of Environmental Assessment in Canada, a report commissioned by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Charitable Foundation, Toronto, January 1997
DFAIT, "CANDU MOX : A Canadian Perspective," 9.
DOE sees "better cooperation between Canadian facilities and licensing authorities and less public resistance to new missions for existing reactors than in the United States." DOE, Final Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment, 105.
Letter, August 30, 1996, of R.L. Gadsby of AECL to the Office of Fissile Materials Disposition, DOE, 3.
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