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| Europe |
| U.S. Plutonium Shipment Reaches France |
| 2004-10-06 |
| Working under tight security from helicopters and police, port crews unloaded U.S. military plutonium from a British ship on Wednesday after its arrival in northwest France, nuclear industry officials said. The nuclear material was unloaded from the Pacific Pintail while another ship in the convoy, the Pacific Teal, remained at bay following its role as escort vessel and decoy. The two heavily armed vessels left from Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 20. "The plutonium is going to now be unloaded with the greatest precaution," said Henri Jacques Neau, a spokesman for Cogema, the French company responsible for treating the plutonium, moments before the unloading. It was to be taken to a company processing plant in the La Hague by way of a secret itinerary, he said. A small flotilla of boats from environmental group Greenpeace mounted a peaceful protest against the arrival of the shipment in the Normandy port of Cherbourg at about 7:20 a.m. local time. "This shipment of weapons plutonium is a wake-up call to the world," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International. "Rather than ship this dangerous material worldwide now is the time for aggressive steps to halt proliferation of all nuclear weapons materials." The military nature of the arrival in France clearly demonstrates that nuclear weapons materials are a threat to global security and have no place in commerce," he said in a statement. (Bla, bla, bla ,,blaaaa) Greenpeace led a string of protests against the shipment of 308 pounds of military-grade plutonium -- enough to make nearly 10 Hiroshima-style bombs -- taken from U.S. nuclear warheads. A French court ruled that the environmental group could face fines if any of its boats got closer than 300 yards at sea or 100 yards in port. The highly radioactive substance has been brought to France for conversion into a commercial fuel called MOX at the Cadarache factory in southeast France. On Tuesday, a dozen militants holding a "Stop Plutonium" banner chained themselves to a truck and blocked a regional highway leading to the Cogema company plant, where the plutonium is to be treated. France's state-of-the-art nuclear technology is being used to help fulfill the terms of a September 2000 U.S.-Russia disarmament accord in which both countries promised to destroy 34 tons of military plutonium. France has received shipments of radioactive material in the past for conversion into MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, but this is the first time weapons-grade plutonium is involved. The U.S. Energy Department must ship the plutonium overseas for conversion because there isn't a plant in the United States that can do it. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #8 "nuclear material to Iran" proposal by Minuteman. It's a lot faster than shipping by sea. Two birds with one stone. |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2004-10-06 10:14:28 PM |
| #7 Thanks, DN. I must have MEGO'ed the "warhead" part. Too bad we took the suckers apart. We could have done Kerry's "nuclear material to Iran" proposal by Minuteman. |
| Posted by: jackal 2004-10-06 8:31:35 PM |
| #6 Jackal, Your indictment of Jimmah is correct in spirit, but not quite relevant in this case. Carter's action prevented us from extracting plutonium from spent commercial reactor fuel. The non-fissile U-238 in the commercial fuel accounts for 96-98% of the uranium and transforms to plutonium after neutron capture. When a reactor shuts down to refuel, there is a fair amount of plutonium remaining in the rods. In the case presented here, these are warheads that are being retired, so there is no real reprocessing issue. Just a question of what to do with a pile of plutonium. Frankly, I'm not sure if that's we can't mix the fuel or we just aren't allowed by law. I'm inclined to think the latter because accounting for plutonium in the reactivity calculations is no big deal. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2004-10-06 4:14:13 PM |
| #5 If you liked Jimmuh you'll love Kerry. Even the Iranian foreign minister had to laugh out loud at Kerry's latest proposal. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-10-06 4:09:43 PM |
| #4 "The U.S. Energy Department must ship the plutonium overseas for conversion because there isn’t a plant in the United States that can do it." Thank you Jimmy Carter. He cancelled our reprocessing plans so as to Set A Moral Example so that other countries wouldn't. So, now we have all the high-level waste storage problems. But at least our moral example has inspired Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, ... to not develop any weaponizable technologies. Idiot. |
| Posted by: jackal 2004-10-06 4:01:37 PM |
| #3 Bon appetit, monsieurs et madames! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-10-06 3:48:37 PM |
| #2 swords into plowshares and all that. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-10-06 3:41:10 PM |
| #1 Ah, you just have to love AP stories. An error a sentence, that's all we ask. First, plutonium is not highly radioactive. If it were, it'd be useless in nuclear weapons since it would decay away too fast. Second, there's no such thing as weapons grade plutonium. That's why plutonium is such a risky commodity; all its isotopes are fissile and don't require enrichment. Uranium, on the other hand, requires enrichment. Third, if one wishes to invoke the ghost of atomic weapons past, then it would be more appropriate to refer back to the bomb (Fat Man) that levelled Nagasaki since that used plutonium, not the one that was used on Hiroshima. Finally, there's no better way of getting rid of plutonium than using it as fuel in a civilian reactor. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2004-10-06 3:27:16 PM |