- The first generation of nuclear power plants, mainly Light Water Reactors (LWRs) would produce plutonium.
- The first Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) would be fueled with reprocessed plutonium from the spent fuel of these LWRs.
- After a transition period, during which both LWRs and FBRs would operate together, FBRs would be the only nuclear reactors. They would "breed" more plutonium than they consumed. The newly bred plutonium inside the FBR spent fuel would be separated in special reprocessing plants, fabricated into plutonium fuel and fed into new FBRs. This would mean an infinite energy source.
The functioning of FBRs "kept the company waiting" and plutonium stocks issued from reprocessing were piling up. Reprocessing contracts that were already existing would only increase the plutonium pile in the future.
The aim of that infinite energy source has not been reached; the hope for a successful FBR program collapsed. It is even planned to rebuild some of the FBRs from breeders to burners of plutonium. Commercial utilization of FBRs is being pushed to the far future, between 2030 and 2050, if ever. But without the prospect of fast breeders and therefore of an infinite energy source, nuclear energy lost another of its promises.
As a result of the lack of perspective for fast breeder reactors (together with the amount of plutonium from dismantling of nuclear weapons), the need for reprocessing becomes more and more futile. The plutonium economy infrastructure must be kept alive until FBRs can be built again. By lack of the original justification for reprocessing, another destination for the tens of thousands kilograms of plutonium had to be found: the use of MOX in light water reactors.
MOX is an abbreviation of Mixed OXide; it is a mixture of depleted uranium and reprocessed plutonium. All nuclear fuel containing plutonium is in fact MOX-fuel, only the percentage of plutonium in the fuel varies: in FBRs it is up to 35% and in LWRs it reaches 4-8%. MOX is not a new process. The MOX fuel fabrication began in the 60s. Several countries (for example Belgium and France) opened their own fuel fabrication plants.
The nuclear industry uses several arguments in favour of MOX:
- It supports non-proliferation, by reducing the quantity of separated plutonium and by making the diversion of plutonium more difficult.
- It saves uranium by re-using plutonium and depleted uranium.
- It avoids the cost of storage of large stocks of plutonium and saves up to 10% on front-end fuel cycle costs.
We can argue that the use of MOX fuel
- has many proliferation risks
- is no solution for the problem of the storage of high-level radioactive waste
- it does not result in a substantial saving of uranium
- bears many extra safety risks, and
- is more expensive than the use of uranium fuel.
We hope that this special issue will help to increase the knowledge and improve the ability to counter the "pro" arguments used for the use of MOX. We hope that people learn that: first and most important, that MOX is an alibi for the continuation of reprocessing; that MOX reflects the hope of the nuclear industry for better times. It is important to stop MOX; it is important to stop reprocessing. It is of the utmost importance to stop nuclear power!
WISE-Amsterdam April 1997
| Contents | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Summary |
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