Radioactive "Trade": Globalizing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

In late 2000, Russia presented a plan that alarmed many environmentalists and security analysts at home and abroad: it offered to take in civilian nuclear wastes from around the world and store or possibly reprocess them over the long term, at a price. Russia's nuclear safety record is poor, to say the least, and the Speaker of the Upper House of the Duma, Yegor Stroyev, has called the scheme "a gift to madmen and the Mafia." ¹ The fact that this scheme is being welcomed and given serious consideration by several possible exporters highlights the desperation felt by many nuclear power-generating countries in the absence of any long-term scheme for dealing with their wastes. The Russian proposal also highlights how the civilian nuclear fuel cycle has become more global in its scope, and more commercialized, as a result of private sector and multilateral efforts to address problems of nuclear waste management.

Nuclear power has experienced a revival in recent years. Touted by its supporters as a solution to climate change, countries which hitherto were scaling back their dependence on nuclear power are reviving plans to expand their nuclear energy programs. Nuclear power was highlighted in President Bush's 2001 National Energy Plan, Britain is going ahead with plans to build a new reprocessing plant, and even Australia is planning a new reactor. But nuclear waste management has always posed severe problems for anynuclear power-generating nation because of the physical risks associated with waste disposal and transportation. The main physical risks lie in the danger of leaked radioactive materials and possible diversion of waste shipments into weapons manufacture. The events of September 11 only underscore the potential dangers of thelatter occurrence.Actual physical risks associated with nuclear waste transport and disposal are compounded by societal risks, or risks to a country's social fabric. Nuclear waste management is one of those issues of particular concern to the general public, and waste transportation can become the focal point of protests, civic disruption, and political opposition to nuclear power and weaponry. ² U.S. activists have dubbed such shipments "mobile Chernobyls."

This article thus addresses a particular type of nefarious trade: the international shipments of nuclear wastes for reprocessing or storage, looking at some of the problems surrounding the actual transportation of nuclear waste, and at recent plans to build an international nuclear waste repository.

Problems with Disposing of Spent Nuclear Fuel

Transboundary shipments of nuclear waste are quite common, despite the strong symbolic association between nuclear power and national sovereignty. The trade consists primarily of reprocessing contracts between states, but there is also increasing pressure from some governments to allow wastes to be stored over the long term in countries other than where it was used. This trade occurs quite simply because few long-term options exist for dealing with nuclear waste, and a handful of countries, notably Britain, France, and Russia, reap an enormous profit from supplying reprocessing services to countries that have none of their own, owing to the cost of setting up such facilities, or to pressures from the United States, which opposes reprocessing in its customer states on the grounds of the proliferation risk it poses. ³ Countries with nuclear power-generating capabilities, such as Germany or Japan, ship spent nuclear reactor fuel to Britain or France where it is reprocessed. The separated elements (plutonium and uranium 235, plus the remaining waste) are then shipped back to the country of origin, following strict international regulations governing fuel ownership and liability established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The U.S. government also plays a strong role in regulating the shipment of these fuels, since much of the fuel used in nuclear plants around the world is of U.S. origin, and is leased to countries which have nuclear power plants under contractual agreements with the United States.

Most of the nuclear waste that crosses international borders for reprocessing...