Letter: Letters: Sensible and safe

From STEUART CAMPBELL

The amount of surplus weapons-grade plutonium in the world is certainly
a matter of great concern (‘A bomb waiting to explode’, 26 February). However,
Vincent Kiernan overlooks the obvious means of disposing of that plutonium
– burning it in fast reactors. Why are the Americans proposing to abandon
the only means of permanently disposing of plutonium? Why is Britain doing
the same thing?

Kiernan claims that the US military has ‘apparently’ exploded a nuclear
bomb constructed with reactor-grade plutonium. My information is that the
plutonium used for this test (in 1962) did not come from a reactor, civilian
or military, and that the US has never conducted a nuclear explosive test
which employed plutonium obtained from the reprocessing of reactor fuel
used in commercial nuclear power plants (in fact, US law prohibits such
use).

Consequently, it is not clear that reactor-grade plutonium can be used
to make a weapon and statements that it can should not be made.

If spent fuel from thermal reactors is not reprocessed, it has to be
buried in a repository (so also throwing away valuable unused uranium).
The plutonium (also valuable) is buried with it and is hardly secure. Reprocessing
is not only sensible and safe, it is the only way to make sure that the
plutonium is used up and removed from the environment.

Steuart Campbell Edinburgh