Under heavy security and amidst much opposition, enough plutonium for 40 nuclear bombs is being taken by sea from the US to France for processing.
The US and French authorities see the shipment as the first step in a new 鈥渁toms for peace鈥� programme to convert 34 tonnes of plutonium from 鈥渟urplus鈥� US weapons into fuel for power stations.
鈥淭his is not just important for national security, it is important for the security of the world,鈥� says Bryan Wilkes of the US National Nuclear Security Administration.
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But the shipment is being opposed by environmental groups, who accuse the US and France of nuclear hypocrisy. 鈥淚t is the height of arrogance to carry out a shipment like this while demanding that other nations refrain from proliferating nuclear weapons鈥� materials and technologies,鈥� says Tom Clements of Greenpeace International.
UK defences
In a trial run about 140 kilograms of plutonium oxide was loaded onto an armed British nuclear cargo ship at the US naval base at Charleston in South Carolina, US, on Monday. Over the following two weeks, accompanied by a sister vessel, the ship will travel to the French port of Cherbourg, under the protection of UK defence forces.
Once unloaded, the plutonium will go by road to a fuel fabrication plant at Cadarache, north of Marseilles, run by the French firm Cogema. It will then be made into fuel rods, which will be returned to the US early in 2005 to try out in a reactor.
If all goes to plan, the US will then ask Cogema to help build a plant to make more plutonium fuel, known as MOX, at Savannah River in South Carolina. At this stage, 34 tonnes of plutonium from weapons would be turned into fuel, in accordance with a US disarmament agreement signed with Russia in 2000.
Terrorist theft
Critics, however, argue that the scheme may create more problems than it will solve. According to Edwin Lyman, from the Union of Concerned 快猫短视频s in Washington DC, the undertaking is 鈥渋ll-conceived, poorly executed and inadequately secured鈥�.
The theft of the plutonium by terrorists 鈥渕ay well be inevitable鈥�, he warns. It would be safer to choose the 鈥減lutonium immobilisation鈥� option, he adds. This process would involve mixing the plutonium with highly radioactive waste 鈥� making it dangerous to anyone attempting to misuse it 鈥� before encasing it in glass and disposing of it.
Matt Bunn, a former policy adviser to the Clinton administration and now at Harvard University, says that the plutonium should be guarded to the same high level as nuclear weapons. This would require 鈥渁 major change鈥� in France and around the world, he argues.
The US, French and British authorities have refused to comment on the detail of the security arrangements for the shipment. 鈥淚t enjoys the highest level of security,鈥� says Henry-Jacques Neau, head of transport with Cogema. 鈥淭here will be no problem.鈥�