Copyright 1999 Boston Herald Inc.
The Boston Herald
March 29, 1999 Monday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: FINANCE; Pg. 024
LENGTH: 902 words
HEADLINE: A
bright idea for plutonium - Surplus to provide electricity
BYLINE: By Jennifer Heldt Powell
BODY:
The end of the Cold War left the Pentagon
with a hot-potato problem: what to do with more than 33 metric tons of surplus
bomb-grade plutonium.
One way to dispose of such dangerous radioactive
material would be to store it in a remote pit. But it would be a long time
before surplus plutonium no longer poses a threat: Its half-life is 24,000
years.
So the government has found a way to make use of it. Last week,
the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $ 130 million contract to a consortium
organized by Boston-based Stone & Webster. It will design and build a plant
to turn plutonium into fuel for civilian nuclear power plants.
Stone
& Webster, an international engineering and construction company, will build
the fuel-making factory in Aiken, S.C., including complex electrical, plumbing
and fire-protection systems. Its partnerswill fill the building with high-tech
nuclear equipment.
The surplus plutonium, a dark, powdery metal, will be
mixed with uranium, the standard fuel for nuclear reactors. The result, called
mixed-oxide fuel, will be used in six power plants for more than a decade.
Using the plutonium in power plants won't get rid of it entirely,
though. Spent fuel will still have to be buried, but before that happens it will
have provided electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
Using Pentagon plutonium to generate electricity has another benefit,
too: It's added assurance that it won't fall into the wrong hands.
Military plutonium is easy for a thief or terrorist to transport.
Plutonium gives off harmful radiation only if it gets into a person's system.
But once it's spent fuel, it can't be detonated and it's dangerous to touch.
The government has been making plutonium for nuclear weapons since the
1940s. How many nuclear bombs exist - and how many could be made with 33 tons of
plutonium is classified information. But it is known that the government is
dismantling thousands of nuclear weapons in Texas.
"With peace breaking
out, the Berlin Wall coming down, the splitting up of what was Russia, the U.S.
and other countries decided we don't need as much of a bang, so we're cutting
back," said Craig Grochmal, a Stone & Webster vice president.
The
United States wants Russia to cut back on its supply of plutonium, too, said
Howard Canter, a Department of Energy official. Russia said it has up to 50 tons
of surplus plutonium, but "We don't know how much they have, total," Canter
said.
By getting rid of plutonium, the United States sets an example and
gives negotiators leverage as they seek plutonium-disposal agreements with
Russia, Canter said.
"The question is what to do with it," Grochmal
said.
A few tons of surplus plutonium that's not pure enough for weapons
will be encased in ceramic and sent directly to Yucca Mountain,
a storage facility in Nevada. The rest, about 33 tons, will be used to create
electricity.
Currently, power plants use uranium, which is mined and
then enriched. Other countries, primarily in Europe, have been combining
plutonium and uranium for fuel, but that hasn't been done here - until now.
The theory is simple: Add a small amount of plutonium to the uranium.
But both substances are dangerous and complicated to work with. Most of the work
will be done by robots and remote handling devices.
The whole project,
though, is just beginning.
The consortium must seek a license from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which could take up to four years. It will take
another three years to build the plant. The mixed-oxide fuel probably won't be
produced until 2007.
The nuclear power plants, which are owned by Duke
Power and Virginia Power, will have to pay for the uranium and the processing,
but the plutonium - which cost the Pentagon billions to produce - will be
supplied free.
The processing will be expensive, but the power plants
could save money because the uranium doesn't have to be enriched, so it will be
less expensive.
"If there are any savings in the fuel costs for the
utilities, some of that savings will flow back to the U.S. treasury," Canter
said - as well as passed on to consumers.
Graphic: Plutonium
"It
is critical that the United States and Russia dispose of surplus weapons-grade
plutonium so that it will never again be used in nuclear weapons," Energy
Secretary Bill Richardson says. Using plutonium in nuclear plants is one way to
do that - a project in which Boston-based Stone & Webster will play a key
role.
The team: DCS
Charlotte, N.C.
Its members (Stone
& Webster, Cogema Inc. and Duke Engineering & Services) will:
Design and operate a facility to produce mixed-oxide fuel by combining
uranium and plutonium.
Modify six nuclear reactors so they can use the
mixed-oxide fuel pellets.
Uranium
The heaviest element on Earth,
used commercially to fuel nuclear reactors. Heavy elements are
unstable: their nuclei are too big to hold together.
Surplus plutonium
Produced for bombs and missiles. The Pentagon has about 33 metric tons
to dispose of. It's even heavier and more unstable than uranium.
Six
reactors, at three sites:
Catawba, York, S.C.
McGuire,
Huntersville, N.C.
North Anna, Mineral, Va.
Nuclear waste
Using military plutonium in power plants won't make it disappear
altogether. Spent mixed-oxide fuel must still be disposed of, in this case at
Yukka Mountain, Nev.
Source: Herald research; Staff graphic by Jeff
Walsh
LOAD-DATE: March 29, 1999
