Citing the recent failure of an experimental plutonium fuel assembly test at a South Carolina nuclear plant, two watchdog groups today called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to suspend a risky, multibillion dollar program that would use 37 tons of surplus nuclear weapons plutonium for U.S. nuclear reactor fuel.

Friends of the Earth and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) discovered that the test, scheduled to run for four-and-a-half years to demonstrate the safety of mixed-oxide (or MOX) fuel in Duke Energy’s Catawba nuclear reactor, had to be aborted after only three years. The fuel assemblies, produced by the French state-owned company AREVA, grew abnormally long in the reactor. This excessive growth is a safety hazard, the groups said, because it can deform and damage the MOX fuel. Duke Energy informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about the aborted test in a June 10 report.

Unfortunately, DOE is constructing a multi-billion-dollar MOX plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.  Instead of trying to introduce plutonium from this plant into the market as costly and dangerous nuclear fuel, DOE should be treating the plutonium as nuclear waste and dispose of it.

Learn more here.