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"Australia would be particularly concerned if a decision by the United States not to accept the return of spent reactor fuel were to lead to increased demand for reprocessing facilities in countries now holding U.S.-origin fuel." (letter to Charles Head, U.S. DOE, from Assistant Secretary Nuclear Policy Branch, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, June 29th 1995.
This extraordinary act of hypocrisy is only now emerging on the eve of the arrival at Dounreay of 114 HEU fuel elements on board the general cargo vessel Condock. The question is: will the new Australian Government put a stop to the nuclear double-speak and repair the damage to Australia's non-proliferation reputation?
In testimony to the United States Department of Energy, the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade stated that the reprocessing of HEU is considered `contrary to sound non-proliferation principles'. The conclusion reached by Greenpeace International is that both in terms of combatting the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation the previous Australian government has completely contradicted itself.
As the arrival date of the MV Condock from Sydney nears, this paper seeks to highlight the deception of the Australian government and its failure to abide by earlier non-proliferation commitments.
"An important part of our shared non-proliferation effort entails ensuring the proper management, accounting, physical protection, safety and eventual disposition of nuclear material." (2) By taking the decision to ship HEU fuel elements to Dounreay for reprocessing, the previous Australian government abrogated nearly every guideline laid out in the above submission. This is not just the view of Greenpeace International, it also happens to be the opinion of the Australian government as laid out in government to government correspondence.
The damning evidence of the contradictions between what is said and what is done is contained within the submissions made by Australian government departments in Canberra to the United States Department of Energy, during the extensive public consultation process for determining what should be done with research reactor spent fuel containing HEU (the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on a Proposed Nuclear Weapons Nonproliferation Policy Concerning Foreign Research Reactor Spent Fuel, 1995).
In the U.S. Draft EIS, the Foreign Affairs Department of the Australian government, notes that,
"Australia would be particularly concerned if a decision by the United States not to accept the return of spent reactor fuel were to lead to increased demand for reprocessing facilities in countries now holding U.S.-origin fuel." (3)The shipment of 114 HEU fuel elements by Australia to Dounreay is a rejection of the principle policy objective of the Australian government, which is against reprocessing. By supporting the reprocessing of HEU fuel at the Dounreay MTR plant, Australia is directly supporting the continued operation of a facility that otherwise would be closed. By delaying the day of closure, the operators of the plant, Atomic Energy Authority- Government Division (AEA-GD) will be provided with more time to secure orders from other overseas clients. This runs counter to Australian policy of being opposed to decisions that `lead to increased demand for reprocessing services...'.
Although the submission to the U.S. DOE relates to U.S. origin HEU, the proliferation threat posed by HEU of UK origin is not any less, pound for pound, than U.S. origin material. Even the Australian government would be unlikely to try and make such an artificial distinction. Thus the conclusion reached by Foreign Affairs in June 1995 as to what to do with U.S. origin HEU, ie. not reprocess, was overturned with the decision to ship UK origin HEU to Scotland.
"They lead us to the clear conclusion that our common interests in effective and sound non-proliferation policies and practices would be best served by the implementation of Management Alternative 1 (shipment of all U.S. origin HEU spent to fuel to the United States)." (4)It is all the more regrettable that the Condock ever set sail from Sydney given the stated opposition to continued HEU use demonstrated by Australia at the NPT (Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) Review and Extension Conference in April-May 1995. Australia jointly submitted language for the final review document of the Conference that was strongly resisted by those countries determined to continue the use of bomb-grade HEU in reactors. Thus, Australia proposed that,
"no new civilian reactors requiring high-enriched uranium be constructed," (5)After what was one of the few heated exchanges at the NPT (at least in public) the countries opposed to such language, such as Germany, Japan, and Algeria, in the end forced a compromise, which however still maintained the important principle that conversion from HEU to non-weapons usable low-enriched uranium held significant non-proliferation benefits.
By providing Dounreay with desperately needed business, the Australian government has renounced its principles as annunciated in New York, and joined the same camp as those promoting the use of bomb-grade materials.(6) There is a further tragic irony in that a majority of Australia's co-sponsors in New York will shortly be on the receiving end of nuclear discharges from Dounreay containing Australian waste.
In December 1991, AEA Technology, announced that an enquiry had been established in an attempt to account for 10 kilograms of HEU. This amount of uranium is sufficient for over 5 nuclear weapons, each with a yield over 1000 tonnes TNT equivalent. (7)
The loss of the HEU occurred in the enriched uranium processing plant, D1203, which provides a service for the fuel fabrication and Dounreay's two reprocessing plants, including the MTR plant. Australian high-enriched uranium nitrate after separation in the MTR will be recovered at the D1203, the end product being oxide (or metal). The plant is the same age as the MTR, having begun operations in 1958.
As a result of the disclosure of missing HEU, the entire Dounreay complex was closed, including the two reprocessing plants. The seriousness of what the UK government described as an accountancy error, led to a European Commission investigation. The Commission reported that the discrepancy was "unintentional", and caused by "shortcomings in the operator's nuclear material accountancy and control system,". By the time of the Commission report, the amount of HEU missing had been revised on four occasions, with a maximum figure of 11.3, finally reduced to 1.8kg. Of the balance of 9.8kg: 2.89kg had been discharged to the sea via the waste pit, 1.99kg was an unrecorded transfer to solid waste, further measurement of the U-235 content of the residues found 0.4kg, and a more complete inventory found 0.7kg in tanks and 3.5kg in residues.(8)
The final result of the enquiry may have satisfied the official agencies and the Dounreay operators, but it gave little reassurance to those most concerned about the proliferation threat posed by Dounreay. As the Australian government know full well, one of the principle problems about reprocessing plants is that it is technically impossible to guarantee the detection of diversion of weapons fissile material. This is one of the reasons why the United States government is opposed to reprocessing of commercial plutonium and uranium. Since 1991, nuclear safeguards have not improved to the point where a repetition of events at Dounreay could not take place again. In fact in some respects the situation is worse. In the Final Report of a European Parliamentary Enquiry into the HEU incident, it was noted that one of the explanations provided by Dounreay to the Enquiry was,
"...commercial pressures exacerbating the underaccounting". (9)Since 1991, the facilities at Dounreay have moved almost entirely to private tender operation, including the MTR reprocessing plant. Although perhaps not the most important factor in increasing the probability of safeguards failure, it should still cause some alarm in Canberra. It would be interesting to know if prior to the decision to ship HEU Scotland, the Australian government raised with the UK authorities the inadequacy of safeguards as applied at Dounreay, and what degree of assurance they received in return ?
A more recent example of the potentially serious implications for nuclear non-proliferation as a result of Australian HEU contracts with Dounreay, comes from the site Director, Mr John Baxter. In a public meeting on October 3rd 1995, Mr Baxter was asked to confirm Dounreay's commitment to meet U.S. non-proliferation objectives whereby any HEU reprocessed at Dounreay would have to be reduced in enrichment to non-weapons usable low enriched uranium (so-called downblending). The Director would not make such a commitment, in fact he stated that it would be a matter for the research reactor operator, `if they wished to have HEU returned after reprocessing, then that is what Dounreay would supply' Mr Baxter stated.
Due the clear contradiction between the views expressed by Dounreay's Director and the United States government, the information was communicated to the U.S. Department of Energy. In response they restated that any HEU of U.S. origin sent to Dounreay would be under the condition that,
"any high-enriched uranium that is separated would be blended down to low enrichment levels so the uranium could not be used in nuclear weapons." (10)Again it would be interesting to know if the Australian government has requested that all of the HEU it sends to Dounreay is downblended to low-enriched uranium ?
When the United States government finally issued its decision on the management of foreign research reactor U.S.-origin HEU in January 1996, it did not select Dounreay, despite expectations as late as December 1995 that it would. It has been communicated to Greenpeace that one of the principle reasons for denying Dounreay large U.S. sanctioned contracts was the refusal by the management to commit to downblending.
From Dounreay's perspective, it was an impossible situation, in that its most likely clients for reprocessing were primarily interested in the re-use of HEU separated at the MTR plant. It would hardly have been encouraging to potential clients for Dounreay to have had to state that it would not provide them with what they wanted - nuclear weapons-usable highly enriched uranium.
Regardless if Canberra has requested downblending, by shipping their HEU to Dounreay they have made it easier for Dounreay's MTR to remain open, and for AEA-GD to secure more contracts. The largest contract market if it exists at all, exists with those countries who are interested in receiving back HEU after reprocessing. That appears to be one reason why the Australian government was against Dounreay when concerned with U.S. origin HEU. Strange that such a convincing argument against reprocessing would be rejected less than six months later, when considering UK origin HEU ?
"We particularly welcome the clear statement that the objective of the policy is to secure for the United States the non-proliferation benefits of reducing, and ultimately eliminating, HEU from civilian commerce. We believe that the proposed policy will produce real nonproliferation gains by reducing the quantities and locations of HEU holdings around the world." (11)
GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, JUNE 1996
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
SHAUN BURNIE
GREENEPEACE INTERNATIONAL
KEIZERSGRACHT 176
AMSTERDAM DW 1016
THE NETHERLANDS
TEL: 31 20 523 6222
FAX: 31 20 523 6200
E:MAIL: SHAUN.BURNIE@GREENPEACE.GREEN2.DE