October 2000
Plutonium is a key ingredient in nuclear weapons, making it one of the most dangerous materials in existence. At the end of 1999, there were over 1,500 tonnes (metric tons) of plutonium in the world, or enough for more than 200,000 nuclear weapons. Most of this plutonium-about 1,270 tonnes-was produced in civil nuclear power programs in 32 countries.1 Each year, the amount of civil plutonium grows at a rate of about 70 tonnes.
The amount of plutonium discharged annually is expected to decrease in coming years. The reasons include a slow decrease in nuclear capacity worldwide as older plants are closed, and the longer irradiation of enriched uranium fuel, which leads to less plutonium discharged from power reactors.
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| - | HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM (HEU)** (WEAPON-GRADE URANIUM EQUIVALENT)*** | |
| Military Civil | 1,270 | 20 |
| Total |
| * Central estimates are updates of values in David Albright and Kevin O’Neill (eds.), Challenges of Fissile Material Control (Washington, D.C: ISIS Press, 1999), and David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies (Oxford: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1997). The estimates exclude HEU used in naval fuel cycles (but include naval reserves), production reactors, and breeder reactors. Also excluded is the plutonium in the nuclear cores of power reactors. A crude estimate is that power reactor cores contained about 100 tonnes of plutonium. |
| ** Highly enriched uranium, which is the other main “fissile material.” Although the amount of civil HEU is relatively small, civil HEU stocks can pose significant proliferation risks and could be stolen by terrorists and fashioned into a nuclear weapon. |
| *** Because of uncertainties about the enrichment level of military stocks of enriched uranium, ISIS uses the convention of “weapon-grade uranium equivalent.” For details, see Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996. |
Civil plutonium is in two basic forms-contained in spent (irradiated) fuel, or in separated (unirradiated) form. Unirradiated plutonium may be in pure form, in the process of being fabricated into mixed-oxide ("MOX") fuel, or in fresh MOX fuel. Once it has been irradiated, however, the plutonium in MOX fuel, like the plutonium produced when uranium fuel is irradiated, is contained in spent fuel. The plutonium in spent fuel is considered more proliferation resistant because it is difficult to separate the plutonium from the other radioactive constituents of spent fuel.
Table 1 shows how much of the world's civil plutonium is contained in spent fuel and how much is in unirradiated forms. The amount of plutonium in both categories is increasing; roughly 85 percent is in spent fuel.
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| - | ||
| Plutonium Produced In Irradiated Fuel*** In Unirradiated Forms |
1,005 195 |
1,065 205 |
| * Uncertainties in the amount of plutonium produced are about 10-25 percent. The uncertainty in the amount of unirradiated plutonium should be less than five percent, because most of these values are declared officially, and stated to be accurate to within 100 kilograms. However, the declarations do not state whether plutonium 241 decay has been accounted for, which could be significant in the case of old separated plutonium. |
| ** Values are not corrected for americium decay and the effect of plutonium recycle in light-water reactors. The 1998 values for total plutonium and plutonium in irradiated fuel are thus greater than the values listed in table 1 of the May 1998 Plutonium Watch. In addition, the 1999 values are greater because the 1998 U.S. declaration to the IAEA was 312 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel. ISIS had calculated 302 tonnes. |
| *** The values for plutonium in irradiated (spent) fuel have not been rounded, in order to maintain consistency with the quantities of separated plutonium. The uncertainty in the irradiated values is at least 10 percent, and thus they are more approximate than they appear. |
Civil Separated Plutonium
Table 2 shows the amounts of separated plutonium held and owned by 14 key countries at the end of 1998, the last year for which detailed country-specific information is available. Most of the figures come from the official public declarations those countries made to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Several of the entries in table 2 are estimates, however, because some declarations are incomplete or ambiguous. In addition, India, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain have not made similar declarations of their separated plutonium to the IAEA. Most declarations for 1999 are not yet available from the IAEA. Nonetheless, based on an assessment of the amount of spent fuel reprocessed, the amount of plutonium used in MOX fuel, and existing 1999 declarations, ISIS estimates that about 205 tonnes of plutonium are in unirradiated forms as of the end of 1999.
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| - | ||||
| Britain France Belgium Germany Japan Switzerland Russia United States China India Netherlands Italy Sweden Spain |
75.9 3.8 6.5 4.9 <0.05 30.3 4 - 5 0 0.7 0 0? 0 <0.1? |
<0.05 1.0 Not Declared 24.4 0 - 5 Not Declared 0 0 0 1.2 ~0.5? 0.833 0? |
35.6 ~2 Not Declared 0 <0.05 Not Declared 0 0 0 0 0 0 0? |
40.3 ~2.8 ~24 29.3 ~1 30.3 4 - 5 0 0.7 1.2 ~0.5 0.83 0? |
| Total (rounded) | - | - |
| Source: David Albright, “Separated Civil Plutonium Inventories: Current and Future Directions,” Institute for Science and International Security, Washington, D.C., June 2000. The U.S. declaration is 45 tonnes, which includes 4–5 tonnes produced in civil power reactors. The rest is from military production reactors that has been declared excess to military needs, and thus not included here. |
During the last few years, about 20 tonnes of plutonium have been separated from spent fuel each year, and about 10 tonnes of separated plutonium have been fabricated into MOX for use as fuel in light-water reactors. In general, the fabrication and use of MOX fuel have not kept pace with the rate of plutonium separation, so the amount of separated plutonium has continued to grow. This trend is expected to continue for several more years.
Europe's MOX fabrication capacity has been expanded, and more power reactors are expected to be licensed to use MOX fuel, particularly in Japan. Based on these plans, civil stockpiles of separated plutonium are scheduled to decrease some time in the early to mid-2000s.
However, intense controversy surrounds commercial reprocessing and MOX use. The recently completed Sellafield MOX fabrication plant (SMP) in Britain may not obtain enough commercial clients to justify operation. The French MELOX fabrication plant may not operate at its full capacity because of government opposition.
Given these types of uncertainties, projections inevitably vary depending on the assumptions of the fate of the MOX fabrication plants, the amount of plutonium separation, and the number of reactors using MOX fuel. The projections presented here are rather broad ranges that attempt to capture most of the possible futures for plutonium separation and use during the next 15 years. Table 3 summarizes these results for countries with plans to use MOX fuel and countries without firm plans to use MOX fuel. A sobering conclusion is that under a wide variety of reasonable assumptions, total civil separated plutonium stocks are not expected to decrease significantly in this period. A positive result is that Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and likely Germany will reduce their inventories to near zero or zero. However, most countries listed in the table will have to store their plutonium either domestically or overseas for the foreseeable future, absent major initiatives to reduce inventories of separated plutonium.
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| - | |||
| Countries with plans to use MOX Belgium France Germany Japan Sweden Switzerland |
2.8 40.3 24 29.3 0.83 1 |
0 30 - 45b 0 - 30c 15 - 35d 0? 0 |
0 20 - 45b 0 - 20c 25 - 50d 0 0 |
| Sub-total | |||
| Countries without plans to use MOXe Britain China India Italy Netherlands Spain Russia |
59.8 0 0.7 0.5 1.2 0? 30.3 |
90 0 ? 1.0 - 1.5 3.0 1 35f |
100 ? ? 1.0 - 1.5 3.0 1 35f |
| Sub-total | |||
| Countries with plans to dispose of civil plutonium with excess military plutonium United States |
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| Sub-total | |||
| Total (rounded) |
| a Source: David Albright, "Separated Civil Plutonium Inventories: Current and Future Directions," Institute for Science and International Security, Washington, D.C., June 2000. |
| b This range reflects the uncertain future of the MELOX MOX fabrication facility. The upper bound assumes MELOX's capacity remains 100 tonnes per year for French plutonium. If the license to expand the facility to handle more French plutonium is granted, more MOX will be fabricated leading to a lower inventory of separated plutonium. The lower bound assumes that MELOX will fabricate a total of 125 tonnes per year of MOX fuel. |
| c This range reflects the uncertain future of both the amount of plutonium Germany will reprocess in the future and how much MOX fuel can be fabricated. If Germany terminates its post-baseload contracts to separate plutonium--currently an unlikelyprospect--or can secure enough capacity within MOX fabrication plants to turn all of its plutonium into fuel, then the plutonium inventorywould be minimized. Limited MOX capacity and continued reprocessing contracts will mean a larger separated inventory. Japan and Germany are by far the largest foreign MOX buyers, so as Japan's MOX requirements increase, Germany and Japan will be vying for the same MOX fuel. |
| d This range reflects the uncertain timing of Japan's use of MOX in reactors and its plants to build a reprocessing plant, Rokkasho-mura. If Japan implements its MOX use plan on schedule, it will load 18 reactors with MOX fuel by 2010, and minimize its inventory of separated plutonium; delaying the schedule will delay the time at which all of the plutonium is used. But the operation of a domestic reprocessing plant, or the negotiation of further reprocessing contracts in Europe, will increase the amount of separated plutonium —at this point there will not be enough reactors in which to insert that quantity of MOX fuel. And again, Japan and Germany are by far the largest foreign MOX buyers, so as Japan’s MOX requirements increase, Germany and Japan will be vying for the same MOX fuel. |
| e The following projections assume that neither MOX nor any other disposition actions occur. |
| f This estimate assumes that Russia will halt reprocessing of LWR spent fuel in 2002. |
Disposing of large amounts of separated plutonium will be time consuming. It might be disposed of more rapidly if it were immobilized with high-level waste, an option the United States is pursuing to dispose of some of its excess military plutonium.
Military Plutonium
The world's militaries have significantly less plutonium than civil owners do-some 250 tonnes, or about a quarter of the amount in civil inventories. But more than 90 percent of military plutonium is in separated form-and thus more readily usable in weapons. About 100 tonnes of military plutonium have been declared excess to military needs by Britain, Russia and the United States. Table 4 lists the inventories of military plutonium by country, and whether more plutonium is being produced for weapons.
Table 4 also lists the amount of military HEU. The table includes South Africa, which stopped making HEU, dismantled its nuclear weapons, and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Table 5 lists excess plutonium and HEU.
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| - | |||
| United States | production halted | ||
| Russia | production halted | ||
| Britain | production halted, but could purchase HEU from United States | ||
| France | production halted | ||
| China | production believed halted | ||
| Sub-total | - | ||
| Israel | production continues | ||
| India | production continues | ||
| Pakistan | production likely accelerated in 1998 | ||
| North Korea | production frozen | ||
| South Africa | dismantled nuclear weapons program in early 1990s and converted stocks to civil use | ||
| Sub-total | - | ||
| Total (rounded) | -- |
| * Central estimates are updates of values in David Albright and Kevin O'Neill (eds.), Challenges of Fissile Material Control (Washington, D.C: ISIS Press, 1999) and David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies (Oxford: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1997). Excludes stocks used in naval fuel cycles (not naval reserves) or production reactors or located in reactor cores, but about 20 tonnes of fuel- and reactor-grade plutonium, a fraction of which is in spent fuel, is included. Totals reduced to account for the down-blending of excess military HEU. | |
| ** Highly enriched uranium—not converted to weapon-grade uranium equivalent. In addition, all of the HEU has been placed under IAEA safeguards. South Africa joined the NPT as a non-weapons state in 1991 following the dismantlement of its nuclear weapons. |
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| - | ||
| Britain Russia United States |
50 52.5 |
500 (assumed weapon-grade) 174 (100 tonnes WGU-eq**) |
| Total | ||
| Already Disposed of |
| * Source: Institute for Science and International Security | |
| **WGU-eq – weapon-grade uranium equivalent | |
Cumulative Civil Plutonium Production
Table 6 shows ISIS estimates of cumulative civil plutonium discharges by country at the end of 1999. The figures were calculated using the methodology described in David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker's book, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996. Breeder reactors are not included in these estimates. ISIS judges that, without detailed knowledge of plutonium discharges at individual reactors, the country-by-country estimates presented here are uncertain by 10-25 percent, a value greater than that assigned in the book. Uncertainty could not be lowered to less than five percent unless each country provided more information about the amount of plutonium discharged in spent fuel, or more information about spent fuel discharges and fuel burn-up.
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| Argentina Armenia Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada China Czech Republic Finland France Germany Hungary India Italy Japan South Korea Lithuania Mexico Netherlands Pakistan Romania Russia Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Ukraine United Kingdom United States |
3.3 24 1.0 11 102 1.7 5.7 13 183 89 6.7 8.3 5.7 129 27 6.8 2.2 3.0 0.58 1.2 89 6.9 2.3 4.6 29 36 17 17 32 82 325 |
| * Spent fuel and plutonium discharges through 1993 are calculated in David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies (Oxford: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1997). Estimated spent fuel and plutonium inventories from 1994 through 1998 were calculated following the methodology detailed in Appendix B of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996. For spent fuel in LWRs, we modified this method by subtracting 1/6th of a core of fuel from each reactor to compensate for uncertainty in the fuel unloading schedule. The uncertainty in these estimates is 10–25 percent. An exception is the United States, which declared 274.4 tonnes, 287 tonnes, and 312 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel at civil reactor sites at the end of 1996, 1997, and 1998, respectively. Thus, the uncertainty in the U.S. estimates is less than 10 percent. These estimates do not include reactor cores, which contain about 100 tonnes of plutonium. And, these estimates have not been corrected for the decay of plutonium 241, nor have they been corrected for plutonium inserted into reactors in the form of MOX fuel and subsequently fissioned. |
The May 1999 issue of Plutonium Watch corrected for the increasing use of recycled plutonium fuel and the radioactive decay of plutonium 241, one of the plutonium isotopes found in civil plutonium. (The other principal isotopes are plutonium 239, plutonium 240, and plutonium 242, all of which have considerably longer half-lives than plutonium 241.) This year, we did not make these corrections, which amounted to a decrease of about 5 percent in the aggregate plutonium values for the 1998 figures. We still lack sufficient data to make the corrections for individual countries, and therefore decided to factor these corrections into a larger uncertainty estimate. In addition, we have learned about other estimates of the total amount of plutonium discharged in spent fuel that suggest that our estimates are underestimating the actual amount of civil plutonium by 5-10 percent.
Notes
1 Excludes the BN-350 breeder reactor in Kazakhstan. Unlike the May 1999 issue of Plutonium Watch, these numbers are not corrected for americium decay or the use of mixed oxide fuel instead of enriched uranium fuel. As a result, in order to be consistent in this year’s publication, we have used uncorrected 1998 numbers. We apologize for any confusion this decision may cause.