[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 82 (Friday, June 24, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          IFR/ALMR SUPPORTS U.S. NON-PROLIFERATION OBJECTIVES

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, recently a prestigious independent 
commission evaluated the role of the Integral Fast Reactor/Advanced 
Liquid Metal Reactor Program as a nonproliferation tool. The Commission 
concluded that the IFR/ALMR Program benefits both the U.S. energy and 
nonproliferation policy and should be continued.
  Mr. President, I ask that the executive summary of this study, 
``Proliferation Aspects of the Integral Fast Reactor,'' be included in 
the Record.
  The summary follows:

                           Executive Summary

       The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) has positive non-
     proliferation features in two important aspects:
       First, the entire reactor and fuel cycle system itself is 
     strongly proliferation resistant, and
       Second, the system can limit, reduce, and, in due course, 
     eliminate the world's excess plutonium, including that from 
     nuclear weapons and that from commercial power reactors.
       The proliferation resistance of the IFR system results 
     largely from the fact that the plutonium in the system never 
     exists in its pure form. Rather, it is always a part of a 
     mixture of intensely-radioactive fission products and 
     actinides which is unusable for an explosive. Thus, (1) 
     diversion of the mixture by any subnational group would be 
     very difficult (and easy to detect) because of the deadly 
     health hazards and the shielding requirements for handling 
     it, and (2) the necessary further step of chemically-
     separating the plutonium from the mixture to obtain 
     explosives material is of the same order of difficulty as 
     separating weapons-usable plutonium from commercial-reactor 
     spent fuel.
       The metal fuel used in the IFR allows fuel processing on 
     such a small scale that the entire system can be co-located 
     on one site. The concept for a plant is to have only depleted 
     uranium enter the plant boundary and electricity produced 
     from the IFR and radioactive wastes (for burial) leave the 
     plant, but the highly-radioactive fuel would be protected 
     against subnational theft or diversion whether reprocessed 
     integrally or separately.
       The IFR concept continually recycles the plutonium in the 
     fuel mixture through the reactor until it is all destroyed. 
     In this case the IFR is designed as a net consumer of 
     plutonium (a ``burner''), and plutonium must continually be 
     fed into the system for the reactor to operate.
       The significance of the IFR as a means to destroy (or 
     ``burn'') plutonium can be seen from consideration of present 
     and anticipated world supplies. The U.S. and Russia have 
     announced plans to release about 100 tons of pure plutonium 
     metal from excess weapons. However, plutonium is also made as 
     a byproduct in commercial nuclear power plants (primarily 
     light water reactors, LWRs), and by the year 2000, over 10 
     times more LWR-manufactured plutonium will exist in the 
     ``spent'' fuel of LWRs than the 100 tons above. This quantity 
     will grow as the use of nuclear power inevitably expands in 
     many countries worldwide.
       While the U.S. does not do so, several nations currently 
     reprocess spent fuel chemically to recover the plutonium and 
     recycle it through the reactor to take advantage of its high 
     energy content. In the process pure plutonium, free of a 
     radiation barrier, exists, and this presents a proliferation 
     concern. Many more nations retain this option by storing 
     spent fuel rather than burying it.
       Recent studies, including a National Academy of Sciences 
     (NAS) report [Ref. 1], have shed new light on a key question 
     of whether only moderately advanced nations could produce a 
     dangerous nuclear explosive from such material. The NAS 
     report answers this question, stating that ``even with 
     relatively simple designs such as that used in the 
     Nagasaki weapon--which are within the capabilities of many 
     nations and possibly some subnational groups--nuclear 
     explosives could be constructed (from reactor-grade 
     plutonium.)'' [Ref. 1. p. 4] Such explosives would be 
     expected to have a significantly lower yield than 
     comparable explosives produced from weapons-grade 
     plutonium, but the yield could still be significant. Even 
     though an inexperienced nation might not succeed on a 
     first try, non-proliferation policy must consider the 
     possibility of success.
       For the released weapons plutonium, the NAS panel 
     recommends mixing the plutonium in fresh LWR fuel rods and 
     exposing the latter in reactors. The fuel rods would become 
     intensely-radioactive during such exposure, and the plutonium 
     would thereby become resistant to diversion by subnational 
     groups. There are two problems, however: (1) only about half 
     of the plutonium would actually be destroyed when exposed in 
     an LWR, and (2) the remaining plutonium would once again be 
     weapons-usable after reprocessing, making the material 
     subject to the risk of national proliferation. This risk 
     arises soon after discharge from the reactor, and increases 
     with time with the decay of radiation. The NAS stated ``While 
     the spent fuel standard is an appropriate goal for excess 
     weapons plutonium disposition, further steps should be taken 
     to reduce the proliferation risks posed by all of the world's 
     plutonium stocks, including plutonium in spent fuel.'' [Ref. 
     1, p. 209] The NAS panel further recommended investigation of 
     concepts for the near-complete elimination of the world's 
     plutonium stocks.
       Both types of plutonium can be destroyed in conventional 
     liquid metal reactors (LMRs), of which one large unit exists 
     in France, and several smaller units exist elsewhere in the 
     world. However, the plutonium fuel must be reprocessed 
     chemically (as with the LWR process) and recycled several 
     times before total destruction occurs. With recycle by 
     current reprocessing plants, pure plutonium exists without a 
     high radiation barrier. This system would typically include 
     the shipment of spent fuel to a reprocessing center, the 
     shipment of pure plutonium to a fuel fabrication facility, 
     and the shipment of essentially non-radioactive fuel rods 
     back to the reactor.
       In contrast, the IFR system offers the potential to destroy 
     all of the plutonium which crosses the plant boundary and 
     enters the system, while simultaneously keeping it in an 
     intensely-radioactive mixture throughout its life in the 
     system. Thus, the IFR system offers the potential for unique 
     non-proliferation advantages as a method for the management 
     and elimination of plutonium. We know of no other method 
     anywhere on the horizon which offers equal potential to 
     respond to the NAS recommendations to reduce the 
     proliferation risks of the world's stockpile of plutonium.
       Argonne National Laboratory is currently completing the 
     assembly of an entire IFR Fuel Cycle system in Idaho; the 
     intention of this research and development project is to 
     demonstrate feasibility on an engineering scale. The 
     successful demonstration (including the EBR-II reactor, which 
     substitutes for an IFR) would provide the world with a 
     demonstrated option for limiting plutonium stocks and thereby 
     minimize proliferation concerns via burning significant 
     quantities of plutonium in a highly-proliferation-resistant 
     system.

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