Obama & the “Nuclear Security Summit Effect”: Nuclear Shipments to the Savannah River Site and Non-Proliferation Theatrics?
This week in Washington, the SRS Watch director, Tom Clements, aimed to meet with President Obama in the West Wing to inform him about the negative nuclear non-proliferation impacts associated with the host of plutonium and nuclear waste shipments to the Savannah River Site being done under the guise of nuclear non-proliferation.
Though the meeting did not come off and the Nuclear Security Summit may proceed without revealing the full story associated with the shipments, we will continue to inform the public about the shipments to SRS as we work for sound nuclear non-proliferation policies.
Nuclear Security Summit Effect shipments to SRS:
– Canadian liquid high-level waste to SRS: Why has DOE staunchly refused to analyze the viable option of denaturing the HEU contents in Canada?
– German graphite spent fuel to SRS: Why proceed with the import plans of the AVR & THTR gas-cooled reactor spent fuel when the NNSA has determined that there is no there is no proliferation risk of it staying in Germany?
– Swiss plutonium – 20 kg – to SRS: Why was this non-US-origin material imported when it was of low risk for nuclear weapons and should have stayed in Switzerland or gone to the massive plutonium stockpiles in France or the UK?
– Import of 331 kilograms of plutonium from Japan to SRS: What will be said at the summit about the stockpile of 10.8 MT of weapon-usable plutonium in Japan, efforts to stockpile more plutonium by operating the Rokkasho reprocessing plant and why 231 kg of UK-origin plutonium is being dumped on SRS?
Is the Nuclear Security Summit being used by some in DOE/NNSA and the White House to engage in commerce of plutonium and nuclear waste even when non-proliferation justification is weak? Have White House officials looked more deeply into the shipments and that plutonium is being stranded at SRS with no disposal plan or is the summit pat-on-the-back news release of paramount importance?