Shipments of Weapons-Usable Plutonium in the Commercial Nuclear Industry

By David Albright
January 3, 2007
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)

Currently, approximately 100 commercial shipments of unirradiated plutonium take place per year, or one shipment every several days. Unirradiated plutonium is the term used for plutonium in a separated form or mixed with uranium and fabricated into fresh fuel for use in power reactors. Both forms of plutonium can be converted for use in nuclear weapons fairly quickly and far more easily than the plutonium in spent fuel.

These 100 shipments contain in total about 25 tonnes of unirradiated plutonium. With eight kilograms of unirradiated plutonium enough to make a nuclear weapon, these shipments contain enough weapon-usable plutonium for about 3,100 nuclear weapons. This report estimates that through 2020, roughly 1,500 shipments will occur containing 500 tonnes of unirradiated plutonium, enough for about 62,000 nuclear weapons.

Shipments of commercial unirradiated plutonium typically travel from civil reprocessing plants to mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facilities and then to power reactors that use the MOX fuel. The transportation of civil unirradiated plutonium for use in nuclear power reactors is a small but critical part of a large system in which nuclear materials must be shipped by land or sea among facilities involved in the nuclear fuel cycle.

The transportation of unirradiated plutonium is widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable parts of the nuclear fuel cycle to attack by terrorist or sub-national groups. Although the continuing danger posed by unsecured nuclear sites in various countries throughout the world is well recognized, there has been less recognition of how prevalent plutonium shipments are becoming in the world and the risk they pose to international security.

Such shipments require extraordinary physical protection, as even the theft of a single shipment could provide enough plutonium for tens of nuclear weapons. So, it is critical to continuously revisit international standards to ensure that unirradiated plutonium shipments have adequate protection. Furthermore, additional nations should be discouraged from acquiring the underlying technologies or contracting for foreign reprocessing of spent power reactor fuel. The risk posed by plutonium shipments brings greater urgency to the need to move away from the separation and recycling of plutonium in power reactors.

This report found that some reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities are co-located, thereby eliminating the need for off-site shipments, the focus of this study. However, this is by no means the case in every country however. Both France and India transport separated plutonium over long distances from reprocessing plants to MOX fuel fabrication plants.

Most commercial shipments of plutonium occur in Europe and Japan, and most of these occur within France, the country with the largest civil plutonium separation and recycling program. A significant fraction of the plutonium separated annually is shipped to mixed-oxide (MOX) fabrication plants in Britain, France, India and Japan. Currently, about 35 power reactors use MOX fuel, and they are located in France, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. This number is expected to increase to over 50 after 2010 when 16-18 of Japan's light water reactors are expected to begin burning MOX fuel, and likely to decrease by 2020 as Germany and Switzerland draw down their remaining stocks of unirradiated plutonium (Germany and Switzerland have decided not to seek additional reprocessing contracts).

India has a nationally self-contained program separating plutonium and using MOX fuel in a breeder reactor research and development program. Details, however, remain sketchy about the number of shipments of unirradiated plutonium, the amount of plutonium in each shipment, and the level of protection.

After 2020, the situation is difficult to characterize. If current expectations are realized about the resurgence of nuclear power, the number of reactors and countries using MOX fuel may increase.

Russia and the United States have declared a large amount of plutonium excess to defense requirements and have committed to build MOX fabrication plants to recycle almost 70 tonnes of excess plutonium into their civil reactors. If these efforts are successful, Russia may also opt to recycle its large civil stock of unirradiated plutonium. This will increase further the transportation of unirradiated plutonium stocks.

Civil plutonium shipments occur by truck, rail, and ship. Air shipments are rarely used anymore, because of health and safety concerns. Information about specific shipments is usually secret in order to better protect the shipments of these dangerous materials from attack or diversion. Tables 1 through 4 include current and projected inventories of separated civil plutonium, estimated off-site shipments through 2020 and the number and quantity of plutonium in tonnes. Appendices I and II contain lists of civil reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities, operating MOX fuel fabrication plants, and lists of reactors using or projected to use MOX fuel.

View the report at http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/end2003/plutonium_shipments.pdf.

For more information contact David Albright at 202-547-3633 with any comments or questions.

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