DOE to Convert More Plutonium in MOX Program

The U.S. Energy Department could convert more weapon-grade plutonium into nuclear reactor fuel than it originally planned, a senior official said yesterday (see GSN, June 20).

The United States and Russia agreed to each convert 34 metric tons of plutonium into a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel to be used in commercial nuclear power plants, but the agency recently concluded that the process could be used for greater amounts of weapons material, the Associated Press reported.

“It will be significant,” said Thomas D’Agostino, chief of the department’s nuclear weapons division, when prompted for the specific additional tonnage.  The exact amount to be converted would remain secret until negotiations with the military conclude, he added.

The decision would have no effect on the joint U.S.-Russia plutonium conversion initiative, D’Agostino said (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2006).  The agency had determined it “can add more plutonium into the [conversion] mix” and does not plan to urge Russia to increase its tonnage in tandem, he said.

“We want to get into a leadership position here globally and look at what minimum we need to do and what more can we do from a leadership standpoint,” D’Agostino added.

The Energy Department is set to begin building a conversion plant this year at the Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina, AP reported (see GSN, April 16; Joseph Hebert, Associated Press/Forbes, July 19).

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