Reuters: Highly dangerous plutonium offers no quick fix to US nuclear fuel shortage

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is continuing talks with companies about converting Cold War-era plutonium into fuel for a new generation of nuclear reactors, part of a multi-pronged strategy to provide enough energy for the rapid growth of US data centers, Reuters reported today.

However, that plan risks major delays and extremely high security costs – to the point where it could become unfeasible – because of one simple fact: plutonium is extremely dangerous, according to Reuters in an analysis titled "Highly dangerous plutonium offers no quick fix to U.S. nuclear fuel shortage."

A grapefruit-sized piece of plutonium, if it falls into the wrong hands, could be used to make an atomic bomb as powerful as the one the US dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II. Even dust from this radioactive element, which has a half-life of 24.000 years, is potentially deadly if inhaled.

"This is weapons-grade plutonium. I'm very concerned that there are large parts of the risk that taxpayers will ultimately face," said Ross Matzkin-Bridger, who has worked on securing plutonium materials around the world at the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration, according to Reuters.

The Trump administration announced last month that it had selected five companies for the final phase of negotiations to convert 19,7 metric tons of various forms of plutonium, including material from dismantled nuclear warheads, into reactor fuel.

Storing plutonium has long been a problem for the US government, and the push to use it shows how the industry is looking for new ways to meet Trump's goal of quadrupling US nuclear capacity by 2050, while demand for electricity from data centre development is skyrocketing.

US Congressman Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois and the only physicist in the US Congress, said that "alarm bells went off in my head" when he heard about the proposal.

Foster believes that the program could require huge security costs to make it "terrorism-proof," and that interested parties should carefully assess the economic viability of such facilities before proceeding.

The US Department of Energy has said it expects that most employees at facilities handling plutonium will be required to have the highest level of security clearance.

Companies will have to submit plans for the safety of materials, including the stabilization, packaging, transportation and storage of plutonium, a spokesman for the Office of Nuclear Energy said.

"The Department of Energy does not expect to incur the costs of specialized counterproliferation, safety, and health protection measures required to process excess plutonium," the spokesman said.

Selected companies

Oklo, one of the companies looking to produce energy using plutonium, believes the material could be a fuel source at least until the US expands its domestic uranium stockpile, including HALEU, a type of fuel produced mainly in Russia that is more enriched than the fuel used in current US reactors.

Bonita Chester, an Okla. spokeswoman, responding to a question about whether taxpayers would ultimately bear the large costs of the program, said that using plutonium as fuel would eliminate the need for another expensive and risky state plan – diluting and disposing of that material.

The Trump administration last year halted plutonium disposal activities when it first announced a plan to use it as fuel.

"Oklo will invest in transportation, supporting infrastructure for fuel production, as well as all regulatory requirements, including safety, security and control mechanisms," Chester said, without providing a cost estimate.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright was a member of the Okla. board of directors before entering the administration.

A Department of Energy spokesman said Wright had no role in the selection of Oklo, had relinquished any shares that had not yet been acquired, and had "removed himself from all matters directly related to Oklo."

Karl Perez, CEO of Exodis Energy, which plans to build a facility on federal land to process surplus plutonium into nuclear fuel, said no facility can obtain the necessary US permits "without fully addressing worker protection, general safety and material protection to recognized standards."

Greg Pifer, founder and CEO of Shine Technologies, said that his company has extensive experience in processing and handling nuclear materials and that plutonium can no longer be used to make bombs after fission in a reactor.

"One of the most responsible things we can do with military-grade plutonium is to burn it," he said.

Standard Nuclear and Flybe Energy, the remaining two companies involved in the negotiations, did not respond to requests for comment, according to Reuters.

A difficult history

The US history of converting plutonium into fuel has been fraught with problems. In 2000, the US agreed to convert plutonium into so-called MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for use in nuclear reactors. The first Trump administration scrapped the MOX program in 2018, citing that it would cost about $48 billion more to implement than the $7,6 billion it had already spent.

Oklo plans to use the plutonium in so-called fast reactors it is developing, which it claims are more efficient than reactors designed for MOX fuel. According to the company's internal estimates, one metric ton of plutonium used in a fast reactor could provide electricity for nearly a million American homes for a year.

Fast reactors in the US have so far been used only for research purposes, not for electricity generation.

Ernest Moniz, the US Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama, said it was simpler and cheaper to dilute and dispose of the material.

"I expect the government will end up paying for a huge portion of everything that's going on here, including all the security infrastructure needed for plutonium that can be used to make nuclear weapons," Moniz said.