(September 20, 1996) The Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) warned delegates gathering in Vienna for the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on September 13 that a new standard approved by the agency's governing board clears the way for frequent air shipments of highly toxic plutonium over their nations in casks not designed to survive a severe crash.
(458.4541) WISE-Amsterdam - Widespread shipments of plutonium by plane had been stopped for a whole decade to allow the IAEA to develop a standard that would finally require a tougher cask to be used for air shipments than the multipurpose cask currently authorized for air, land and sea shipments. The IAEA had put member-states on notice that this cask offered far less protection in an aviation accident than in a surface accident, and that it would forbid its use for air shipments.
On September 9, the IAEA's governing board approved what supposedly were new criteria for a separate air-shipment cask. "But the new IAEA standard is a sham," charged NCI President Paul Leventhal, "because it purports to establish much stronger crash and fire standards for air shipments than surface shipments of plutonium, but, in fact, permits continued use of the weaker cask for air transports indefinitely."
"Grandfathering" provisions in the new regulations allow existing surface-transport casks to continue to be used for plutonium air transports so long as there is "multilateral approval" by shipping and receiving states and by states through which the transports are routed.
"It is noteworthy," Leventhal said, "that the regulations were written specifically to exclude states that are over-flown by these deadly cargos from having any say in the matter. Since it is now possible to fly plutonium non-stop, even from Britain and France to Japan, the IAEA is imposing an outrageous, involuntary risk on dozens of en-route countries."
No nation has been able to develop a cask for plutonium air shipments. The IAEA standard establishes specifications for an air-shipment ("Type C") cask, but these fall far below U.S. requirements, as well as the international requirements for the "black box" package for flight data recorders used in airliners.
Provisions of the new IAEA standard permit continued use of existing surface-transport ("Type B") casks for air transport of plutonium in bulk or MOX form with multilateral approval of the parties directly involved. Even a requirement that MOX fuel be tested to prove it is "low dispersible material" suitable for air-transport in Type B casks need not take effect as long as existing type B casks are available.
The U.S. government had objected that this exemption "negates the original intent for developing [separate] air transport standards". It also told the agency it would bar plutonium flights in IAEA-approved casks from U.S. airspace because these casks fall far short of U.S. requirements. Nonetheless, the United States joined the consensus in the IAEA board in approving the new standard for the rest of the world.
It is clear the IAEA board acted by consensus at the urging of a handful of nations whose plutonium industries had a direct commercial stake in the outcome, particularly Britain, France, Germany and Japan. "This action demonstrates a greater concern with the economic toll to the plutonium industry of developing a truly crash-worthy cask than the human toll if a plutonium transport plane crashes into a densely populated area," Leventhal said.
A joint campaign by the NCI and Greenpeace International urges nations to exercise their legal right to bar overflights of plutonium in IAEA-approved casks.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) acknowledges the right of countries to require permission before dangerous goods can over-fly their territories. "Even if ICAO incorporates the IAEA standard into its regulations, ICAO gives nations the choice of barring plutonium transports from their airspace," Leventhal said. "All nations should put the interest of their citizens first by advising ICAO that plutonium flown in IAEA-approved casks will be prohibited over their territories."
ICAO raised technical objections, especially to the IAEA contention that "high-speed impact and long duration fires are not expected to be encountered simultaneously" in aircraft accidents. The IAEA thus allows separate crash-and-fire tests on the same cask. This has led an ICAO experts' group to conclude that "the sequence of tests as presently proposed for Type C packagings did not replicate what was likely to happen in an aircraft accident."
"This is safety reform, IAEA style," Leventhal said. He noted that the Type B cask is rated to survive a crash of 30 miles per hour, compared with a U.S. requirement of 300 mph. The ICAO standard for flight data recorders is comparable to the U.S. plutonium cask standard.
Hundreds of air shipments may be needed to move tens of tons of plutonium from Britain and France to Japan. The most likely route is across Northern Europe, Russia, China and the Korean Peninsula. There are also alternative French and British territorial routes to Japan that would involve flying plutonium over Caribbean, South and Central American, and South Pacific countries.
The United States and Canada barred Japanese plutonium air shipments over their territories when such a route was proposed in 1987, following Japan's failure to provide a crash-worthy cask. The U.S. obtained a written pledge from Japan to conform to the strict U.S. requirement for a crash-worthy cask when using U.S. airspace, but this obligation does not apply to non-U.S. airspace, including Japan's.
The new IAEA standard also permits Britain to continue its present practice of flying plutonium in the form of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel into Switzerland and out of Belgium, criss-crossing a number of European countries. British MOX shipments to Germany also would be permitted.
On 12 September, activists from Greenpeace blockaded a nuclear transport at Oostende airport, Belgium. The never-used MOX fuel (originally meant for the KNKII research reactor at the German Karlsruhe nuclear research center) was transported by road from its storage at Hanau (Germany) to Oostende, where it was flown to the Scottish reprocessing plant at Dounreay. Eleven activists were arrested by the Belgian authorities but were soon released.
Sources:
- NCI Press Release, 13 Sept. 1996
- Personal contact Greenpeace Amsterdam
Contact: Sharon Tanzer/Dr. Edwin Lyman at Nuclear Control Institute, 1000 Connecticut Av. NW. Suit 704, Washington DC 20036, USA
Tel: +1-202-822 8444
Fax:+1-202-452 0892
or: Greenpeace Amsterdam, Keizersgracht 174, 1016 DW Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-6261877
Fax:+31-20-6221272
E-mail: greenpeace.netherlands@green2.greenpeace.org