Making the World Safer

In South Carolina and North Carolina, lights turn on with the flick of a switch, much as they have for decades; televisions and computers are powered by pressing omnipresent “on” buttons, the same as always; and air conditioning systems automatically come to life when temperatures reach a pre-set number. Yet, thanks to a small cast of government officials, nuclear workers and the skill of PNTL, these simple everyday acts are helping to make the world a safer place for everyone.

Since June 2005, the reactor core of unit 1 at Duke Power’s Catawba Nuclear Station in South Carolina has contained four assemblies of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, manufactured from a mixture of uranium and U.S. surplus weapons plutonium. From the moment that fuel was loaded, every kilowatt of electricity used by hundreds of thousands of Carolinians has been helping to transform the plutonium into a form that is unattractive for weapons use.

	Catawba Nuclear Station South Carolina

Following a bilateral agreement signed in 2000, both the U.S. and Russia, in parallel programs, will each dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium – enough for thousands of nuclear weapons. It will be converted into MOX fuel and used in nuclear reactors in the U.S. and Russia. The irradiated MOX fuel will be removed and disposed of in the same way as any other used nuclear fuel.

In the future, MOX fuel will be manufactured at a new facility at Savannah River, a large U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) site in South Carolina, and used at Catawba and its sister station, McGuire Nuclear Station, in North Carolina. MOX fuel contains about 95 percent uranium, the same material that is used in nuclear power plants around the world today, and 5 percent plutonium.

To obtain a license to use MOX fuel in significant quantities, Duke Power needed to verify how weapons-grade MOX fuel would perform in a reactor. Because the United States will not have the capability to produce MOX fuel until the planned facility is operating at Savannah River, officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of USDOE, decided to manufacture lead assemblies in existing facilities in France operated by AREVA, a PNTL shareholder. By making the lead assemblies in France, a three to four-year program licensing delay was avoided.

AREVA has manufactured MOX fuel that operates in more than twenty nuclear reactors in France and other countries, including Germany and Belgium

“The MOX fuel has performed as expected,” said Paul Bailey, Duke Power MOX fuel project manager. The fuel is being closely monitored by Duke Power, who will use the data to support the licensing application for batch fuel use at Catawba and McGuire.

For the shipment, some 140 kg of weapons grade plutonium was transported across the United States, from Los Alamos, New Mexico to Charleston, South Carolina. From there, it was shipped by PNTL to Cherbourg, France in October 2004 and moved by road in special vehicles to two facilities, Cadarache and MELOX.

After manufacture into MOX fuel, the material returned to Cherbourg, was shipped by PNTL back to Charleston in March 2005, and moved to Catawba in time for loading during a scheduled maintenance and refueling outage.

BNGS Transport Operations Manager Alastair Brown was in charge of PNTL’s contract to ship the material. “PNTL was selected to ship the plutonium and MOX fuel because it is the world’s leading shipper of nuclear material. In fact, PNTL was the only company in the world who could have carried out this work to these specifications.”

BNGS Business Development Manager, Dave Snedeker, spent two years working on the project. “A great deal of coordination was required between ourselves and security agencies in the UK, United States and France. Every security aspect was carefully considered, everything was worked out to the last detail and all necessary measures were taken to ensure that the shipments were completed as planned.”

USDOE’s Office of Secure Transportation (OST) transported the material within the United States. Physical security arrangements included the use of unmarked armored USDOE tractor-trailers, highly trained armed federal agents, escort vehicles and a variety of communications equipment. Similar arrangements were in force in France.

The Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail are fitted with fixed naval guns when shipping MOX fuel or plutonium More about PNTL Security »

The Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail moved the material across the Atlantic, each escorting the other. As with shipments of MOX fuel between Europe and Japan, both ships were armed with fixed naval guns and on-board protection was provided by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary (UKAEAC), which has since been reconstituted as the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC).

The location of the cargo was not revealed and various additional security measures, only some of which were visible from the outside, were also employed.

NNSA Administrator Linton F. Brooks succinctly described the lead assembly program, commenting that, “This effort supports our mutual nonproliferation objectives and brings us one step closer to eliminating large quantities of surplus weapons-grade plutonium in the United States and Russia.”

The MOX fuel program is good for customers of Duke Power – and, not just because it contributes to reducing stocks of weapons plutonium. Under the terms of its agreement with the U.S. government, Duke Power will receive a discount on the price of MOX fuel, relative to the cost of the uranium fuel it would otherwise have to purchase. Those fuel cost savings will be passed along to its customers. In addition, USDOE is paying for the relatively minor modifications required for Catawba and McGuire to use MOX.

This beautiful location on Lake Wylie in York County, South Carolina, is perhaps an unlikely spot for beating swords into ploughshares, but that is precisely what, in modern day language, the neutrons in Catawba unit 1 are doing.

May 2006