UK Plutonium Stockpile Poses 'Severe Risks'

The potential consequences of a major security breach or accident involving the UK's stockpile of separated plutonium are so severe that the government should urgently develop and implement a strategy for its long term use or disposal, a report by the Royal Society has warned.

The report said that the UK's civil stockpile of separated plutonium is now over 100 tonnes - enough to make 17,000 nuclear bombs - and has almost doubled over the last ten years.

Highly toxic, plutonium is the primary component in most nuclear weapons and the Royal Society warned that it could be made into a "crude nuclear bomb" by a well-informed and equipped terrorist group.

Professor Geoffrey Boulton, chair of the report's working group, said: "The status quo of continuing to stockpile separated plutonium without any long term strategy for its use or disposal is not an acceptable option. The Royal Society initially raised concerns about the security risks nine years ago and we have not seen any progress towards a management strategy. Furthermore, the stockpile has grown whilst international nuclear proliferation and terrorist threats have increased.

"Just over 6kg of plutonium was used in the bomb which devastated Nagasaki and the UK has many thousands of times that amount. We must take measures to ensure that this very dangerous material does not fall into the wrong hands."

The report recommends that a strategy to manage the UK's separated plutonium must be considered as an integral part of the energy and radioactive waste policies that are currently being developed.

The report suggested that the current best option is to convert the plutonium into Mixed Oxide and using it as fuel in nuclear reactors. The report says that this would make it more difficult to steal because spent fuel is more radioactive and therefore harder to handle than plutonium and more difficult to use in nuclear weapons, because it would need to be reprocessed first.

This could happen f the government decides to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, the report said.

Another option was that the plutonium could be converted and stored as MOX fuel pellets, which could make it more secure, but not as safe as spent fuel.

However, the report said that the best option in the long term would be to bury the plutonium deep underground in the form of spent fuel,

The report has been welcomed by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but a spokesperson said that it would not be appropriate to take any decisions until the public consultation on new nuclear had been completed and the outcome was known.

(KMcA)