A Japanese-Russian Agreement to Establish a Nuclear Facility
for MOX Fabrication and Spent Fuel Storage
in the Russian Far East
by Matthew Bunn1, Neil J. Numark2 and Tatsujiro Suzuki3
Issues to be addressed
This concept is intended to address three key problems:
This proposal is intended as an option to help address all of these concerns.
The proposal
The concept, in essence, is a Japanese-Russian government-to-government agreement (with support from additional partners as desired by the principal two), to build a large MOX fabrication plant and international spent fuel storage facility in the Russian Far East. The facility would address the global security imperative of weapons-plutonium disposition while in parallel providing much-needed storage capacity for spent nuclear fuel from both commercial power and naval propulsion reactors. Japanese and Russian industry would cooperate in the construction of these facilities. As a major world economic power with the largest commercial nuclear program in the region, and as a country with strong non-proliferation credentials and a high historic interest in nuclear disarmament, Japan may wish to play the kind of significant role in the disposition of Russian weapons plutonium that this proposal would entail.
The entire nuclear facility in the Russian Far East would be under international safeguards, and the two parties (and others) would cooperate to ensure that it had the highest attainable standards of security and accounting for the nuclear material. Further, the parties might agree on additional international approaches to ensure that the facility met the highest standards of safety, security, and transparency. Indeed, a larger international group, including the United States and European countries, might be asked to be involved, particularly in ensuring internationally approved approaches for safety, security, and safeguards.
If acceptable terms could be agreed between the Japanese government and Japanese private electric utilities, such utilities could be the principal beneficiaries of both facilities because they could secure (a) low-cost contracts to store their spent fuel at the facility for a specified period, perhaps as long as 50 years; and (b) low-cost contracts for supply of MOX fuel. The revenues generated from Russia's provision of these commercial services to Japan's utilities could contribute substantially to financing the capital costs of both the MOX plant and the storage facility, and could also provide additional funds for Russia and the population of the affected region. Meanwhile, the Japanese government could also purchase low-enriched uranium (LEU) downblended from HEU arising from retired nuclear weapons, which could later be sold to utilities or stored as a national "reserve." The proceeds from such sale of LEU would also apply towards the costs of building the Russian MOX fuel plant, supplementing the funds coming from the sale of MOX fuel to Japan's private utilities.
The main elements of the concept are outlined schematically in Figure 1.*
Figure 1 – Scheme for Possible Japanese Contribution to the Disposition of Russian Ex-Weapons Plutonium, and Parallel Storage of Asian Spent Fuel in Russia
* For simplicity, Figure 1 addresses only the commercial transactions between Russia and private utility companies in Asia as outlined in this paper and does not show the disposition of Russian weapons plutonium within Russia (and possibly other countries) which would occur in parallel with this concept, the purchase of LEU by the Japanese government as proposed in this paper, or the shipment of Russian naval spent fuel to the storage facility as also proposed in this paper.
During the specified spent fuel storage period, additional research
would be performed on improved methods for management of spent fuel (including
both recycling and disposal), and the parties could continue discussions
of potential additional cooperation. At the end of the contract period,
the fuel would be returned to its utility owners, unless the parties had
agreed in the interim on mutually beneficial arrangements to pursue some
other approach (such as a further extension of the storage period or even
permanent disposal of the fuel). Russia would also use the facility to
store its own spent fuel, including that from naval vessels in the Pacific
Fleet, which may be in close geographic proximity to the facility. In fact,
one option for the siting of the overall facility would be to locate it
at a Russian naval base.
The MOX plant would fabricate MOX from some portion of the weapons plutonium declared excess to Russia's military needs (in parallel with disposition of U.S. excess weapons plutonium using facilities in the United States). The plant would fabricate light water reactor MOX fuel for Japanese utilities, which by then may have gained experience using MOX fuel fabricated in European facilities from civilian plutonium. This plant would be a logical and complementary follow-on to the DEMOX pilot MOX facility proposed by Russia, France and Germany (if funding for that facility can be found), which is intended to be built at Chelyabinsk to produce MOX fuel for four of Russia's own light water reactors, at Balakovo, and its BN-600 fast reactor. Although this concept would differ from current assumptions in that the larger follow-on MOX plant would be built in the Russian Far East rather than at Chelyabinsk as an extension of DEMOX, financing for the program as currently assumed has been extremely difficult to obtain. In contrast it is envisioned that this concept, by harnessing the funds potentially available from utilities needing additional spent fuel storage as well as fresh fuel supply, would provide a mechanism for financing such additional Russian MOX fabrication capacity beyond the DEMOX facility. In addition, if it proved cost-effective to do so, lines for fabricating other types of MOX fuel could also be included in the facility, such as CANDU fuel for consumption in Canada or fuel for Japan’s Fugen Advanced Thermal Reactor and the Monju Fast Reactor, if and when they restart. At the same time, the DEMOX facility, if built, could still continue supplying fuel to the Balakovo and BN-600 units. If the United States and Russia decided to jointly pursue the "dual-track" approach the United States has chosen, and funding could be found, an immobilization plant could be built and operated at this facility or elsewhere in Russia, in parallel with the MOX plant.
To address possible concerns over sending MOX containing weapons-grade plutonium to Japan, a non-weapons state, the weapons plutonium could be mixed with the stockpile of over 30 tons of separated reactor-grade plutonium now in storage at the Mayak Production Association at the town of Ozersk (formerly known as Chelyabinsk-65), allowing that stockpile to be reduced as well. The MOX spent fuel irradiated in Russia and Japan would also be stored at the joint facility.
If the Russian and Japanese partners agreed that it would be mutually beneficial to pursue other cooperative partners as well, the spent fuel storage facility in the Russian Far East might also seek contracts for storage of spent fuel from South Korea and Taiwan. Both South Korea and Taiwan are currently running out of spent fuel storage space, and some parties in both states remain interested in getting the United States to give its consent to foreign reprocessing of their U.S.-origin spent fuel – but U.S. consent does not appear likely in the foreseeable future. Storage at this facility could provide a proliferation-resistant approach to resolving this dilemma. In the future the facility could also receive spent fuel from the KEDO project, if nuclear reactors are in fact built and operated in North Korea in the future. If the partners in building this facility agreed that it was mutually beneficial to do so, other international partners could also be invited to store their spent fuel at the facility, in return for comparable payments.
The Importance of Securing Commercial Benefits
While disposition of excess weapons plutonium will provide substantial security benefits to the entire international community, including the G-8, the G-8 states have so far failed to agree to provide funding for such a program, or even to enter into serious negotiations over such funding. This suggests that the most promising solutions to this problem may be those that also provide financial benefits sufficient to help the program pay for itself, substantially reducing the need for direct government support. The concept presented in this paper aims to overcome the obstacles that have thus far blocked the development of a viable internationally-agreed approach to financing the disposition of Russian weapons plutonium, essentially by harnessing the substantial resources that electric utilities in Japan and elsewhere intend to spend in any case for spent fuel storage and new fuel procurement, in return for the siting within the Russian Far East of the nuclear facilities of which these utilities would be customers and in return for receiving services from these facilities at attractive prices. These commercial arrangements could greatly reduce the need for coordinated G-8 funding of Russia’s plutonium disposition program, leading to an increased likelihood that disposition could be accomplished in the near term.
The key to the concept's economic viability is the presumption that the cost and political difficulty of building and operating both the MOX fuel fabrication plant and the spent fuel storage facility in Russia will be comparable to or less than those of alternative fuel cycle management options, even after allowance for economic benefits to Russia that must be provided as inducement for Russia to participate. Additional work is needed to flesh out the costs more precisely, but it appears very likely, given the relatively modest cost of dry cask storage facilities and the prevailing low labor and materials costs in Russia, that construction of such facilities in Russia would be an economically attractive option. In particular, it is very likely that the total capital and operating costs of the spent fuel storage facility would be lower than the cost that East Asian utilities are otherwise expecting to pay for management of their spent fuel over the next several decades, even if the capital cost of the MOX plant and the costs of providing associated economic benefits to Russia were included. Thus, the utilities might be able to save money on their spent fuel management even as Russia made substantial profits on operation of the spent fuel storage facility. Russia might also be able to make a profit from operation of the MOX plant: if the initial capital cost of the MOX plant were written off (paid for by some combination of governments and utilities as part of the overall cost of the disarmament and fuel storage scheme), then the operating cost-per-kilogram that Russia would incur to produce the MOX fuel would likely be less than the price Japanese utilities pay today for LEU fuel of equivalent energy value (particularly given the low prevailing wage rates in Russia).
If additional financing were needed to make the package economically attractive, and governments were not willing to provide it from on-budget resources, it would be possible, as already noted, for Japan and Russia to agree that Japan would purchase a substantial stock of LEU blended from Russian HEU (in parallel with the U.S. purchase of LEU blended from 500 tons of HEU), with a substantial portion of the proceeds from this purchase being used to finance the construction of the MOX facility. Japan could hold the purchased LEU off the market for the time being, bolstering its energy security by providing a strategic stockpile to deal with any future uranium supply interruptions.
In short, by generating revenues from commercial services in spent fuel management and fresh fuel supply, together with harnessing the value inherent in Russia’s still large excess stockpile of HEU, it may be possible to accomplish both secure spent fuel storage and disposition of excess weapons plutonium without requiring large on-budget subsidies from the G-8 governments. All program costs could be covered even as utilities in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan paid less for spent fuel storage (and, in the case of Japan, less for new fuel procurement) than they might otherwise.
Benefits
The potential benefits of this venture may be summarized as follows:
Benefits to Russia
In addition to its benefits for the two principal partners, this concept would also provide benefits to the rest of the international community. It is particularly important that it provide benefits to the United States, whose prior consent would be required for the shipment of spent fuel to the facility and whose support would also be important for this approach to resolving the excess weapons plutonium problem. Benefits to the United States and the international community would include:
Legal and political issues in Russia probably pose the largest single obstacle to implementing this approach. There will be the difficulty of making the case there that such an approach is safe and profitable, and does not represent unacceptably turning Russia into "the world’s nuclear dumping grounds." Key factors in making this case would include:
A disadvantage in the Russian context is that very long-distance transport of the plutonium oxide would be required for a MOX plant located in the Russian Far East. A wide range of measures, comparable to those used to protect shipments of nuclear weapons themselves, would be required to ensure security and safety of these plutonium shipments.
Similarly, substantial ocean transport of spent fuel from Japan (and possibly South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries) would also be required to implement this proposal. Here, too, new efforts would be needed to ensure safety and address public and international concerns (which have been expressed concerning shipments of spent fuel, plutonium, and high level waste between Japan and Europe).
For Japan, a decision by the government and utilities to participate in the proposed program could mean that they would be making substantial changes in existing plans and commitments, including (A) potential further delay in the start-up of the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing facility and (B) reactor loading with MOX fuel containing plutonium that is not the property and responsibility of the utilities that own these reactors. Both of these aspects could be problematic, but there are measures that could potentially address both of them. While the potential for further delays in starting up the Rokkasho facility could damage relations between the government and the utilities on the one hand and the local government of Aomori prefecture and the surrounding area on the other, a commitment to continue to provide high-technology jobs at that facility with a large-scale fuel-cycle research and development center could go a long way toward assuaging the regional government's concerns. Japan might choose to conduct a substantial research program on improved methods for spent fuel management in the long term, including proliferation-resistant recycling approaches and better methods for permanent disposal. A $1-$2 billion research facility could be built at the Rokkasho-mura site, providing jobs and investment there to compensate in part for any lost because of further delays in operating the large reprocessing facility. Such a large-scale research program could help to ensure Japan’s technological leadership in the nuclear fuel cycle. At the same time, the facility could be a center for joint research with Russia on advanced nuclear technologies, potentially including further development of Russian "vibropack" fuel fabrication concepts, proliferation-resistant fuels, and other technologies.
Concerning the use of MOX fuel in Japanese commercial reactors, it appears likely that by that time, the reactors in question will already be using MOX fuel shipped from European fabrication facilities. While MOX fabricated in Russia from weapons plutonium would not be the inevitable result of management of the utilities’ own spent fuel, it would have the attraction of playing a key role in disarmament – a potentially important factor in Japan, particularly if the United States strongly supports this approach. Moreover, if operation of Rokkasho were further delayed because this approach made additional spent fuel storage capacity available, removing some of the pressure for near-term reprocessing, the MOX from Russia would in effect substitute for MOX that would otherwise have come from Rokkasho's reprocessing. As in the current plan, communities near reactors that would use the Russian MOX might receive additional benefits.
As noted earlier, there may be concern in some quarters over the prospect of sending MOX containing weapon-grade plutonium to Japan, a non-nuclear-weapon state. If this were judged to be a major issue, it could be addressed by mixing in reactor-grade plutonium, from the large civilian stockpiles that already exist in Russia and whose reduction is also an important nonproliferation objective.
Finally, from the U.S. point of view, while the benefits of such an approach would be substantial, it would be important:
A Path Forward?
This proposal could offer an approach to resolving several key international issues, including disposition of excess weapons plutonium, management of spent fuel, and East Asian nuclear cooperation, in a way that supports nonproliferation and arms reduction objectives. Most importantly, the concept offers potential global security benefits by providing a means for financing the disposition of Russian surplus weapons plutonium, which the G-8 governments have thus far unfortunately been unable to do. The project accomplishes this through the harnessing of resources that electric utilities in Japan and elsewhere would otherwise spend domestically for nuclear fuel cycle management and can instead use for a Russia-based, economical approach to both spent fuel storage and plutonium disposition/MOX fuel supply.
Nevertheless, the obstacles to implementation of the proposal are likely to be substantial. The next step is to explore the basic outlines of the idea with government officials, industry representatives and other experts in Japan, Russia, the United States, and other countries, to gain additional insights into the attitudes and concerns of all the relevant parties, and to adapt the proposal to maximize the benefits the parties perceive in it and minimize its disadvantages and the obstacles it faces. Then it will be up to the governments involved to explore whether there is a basis for an agreement to pursue such a far-reaching cooperative initiative.