Briefing: Expanding the threat of Russian weapons-grade plutonium - "the Western option"

A misdirected approach to the global crisis that exists in the management of spent nuclear fuel and disposition of the massive stocks of weapons-usable plutonium has been encapsulated in a new initiative being presented by an organization which calls itself the Nuclear Disarmament Forum (NDF). Located in Zug, Switzerland, and backed by a few European nuclear power utilities, NDF is hosting an awards ceremony on October 12, 2002, at which it will highlight its proposal for establishing a Russian-European trade in weapons-grade plutonium nuclear fuel. If realized, the proposal would help establish a dangerous plutonium processing infrastructure in Russia, open up the risky transportation of weapons-grade materials from East to West, and result in the eventual dumping of large quantities of spent nuclear reactor fuel--high-level nuclear waste--in Russia.