PARIS - Plutonium from U.S. nuclear warheads - enough to make nearly 20 Hiroshima-style bombs - is headed for France aboard armed freighters and a new life as commercial fuel that will ultimately light American homes.
. . .
France's state-of-the-art nuclear technology is being used to help fulfill the terms of a September 2000 U.S.-Russia disarmament accord under which both countries promised to destroy 34 tons of military plutonium each. Radioactive material has been shipped to France in the past for conversion into MOX fuel, but this is the first time weapons-grade plutonium is being used.
The U.S. portion of the project is worth $250 million to $300 million to French state-run nuclear company Areva, which will start by turning 308 pounds of plutonium into MOX, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide.
. . .
For anti-nuclear activists, MOX presents a danger at every turn. "What you have is material that can be used in nuclear weapons unfortunately being traded in as if you were moving bananas around," said Shaun Burnie, nuclear campaign coordinator of Greenpeace International. Security, he claimed "is an afterthought."
. . .
Greenpeace accuses the United States and France of arrogance for organizing the plutonium trip even while pressuring other countries not to use technology or materials that could make nuclear weapons. "Nonproliferation policy has been hijacked by the commercial nuclear industry," said Burnie. "This shipment is going to bring that into stark focus."
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/world/9722479.htm
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