7. Summary

As we have argued, MOX is not and can not be the solution the nuclear industry would have us believe.

MOX

• Is seen by the nuclear industry as an interim solution until such time as the hoped-for commercial use of Fast Breeder Reactors has become standard.
• Provides a justification for continuing reprocessing.
• Does not reduce plutonium stocks; the increase is merely smaller than that generated by the use of uranium fuel.
• Does not save large amounts of uranium: by the year 2000 the saving will have been about 5%.
• Does not save storage costs; on the contrary, due to the large quantity of actinites, it produces more radiation and heat than uranium fuel and is therefore more difficult to handle.
• Is expensive: when reprocessing costs are added, it is up to eleven times more expensive than uranium fuel.

In practice the plutonium can only be re-used once because of degradation: it becomes less fissionable and more non-fissionable Pu-istopes appear. Due to the presence of plutonium, MOX production is more dangerous than uranium fuel production. Small accidents, which occur all the time, are likely to have far more serious consequences than than they do at present, because of the wide-spread use of plutonium.

The use of MOX will not decrease the danger of nuclear proliferation, as is often claimed, but on the contrary, will increase it, due to:

• Continued reprocessing.
• The inevitable increase in the transportation of separated plutonium.
• The use of plutonium will become more wide-spread.
• Countries building plutonium stocks will provide a bad example.
• Safeguarding nuclear materials will become more and more difficult due to the quantities of material involved and the inevitable financial limitations.

Light Water Reactors are designed and constructed for the purpose of burning uranium fuel. They have to be adapted and relicensed for the use of MOX.
The use of MOX has three specific consequences for the behaviour of the reactor:

• Leak burn-ups cause the fuel rods to weaken.
• Far more fission gas is released during the process.
• The reactor vessel may become brittle as a result of increased radiation damage, due to the higher energy of the neutron spectrum.

It is clear that the objective underlying the arguments in favour of MOX is the continuation of the production of nuclear power. It should be obvious that this is undesirable.

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Summary

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