The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has cleared the future transfer of some U.S.-origin uranium and plutonium, currently in irradiated fuel rods, from South Korea’s state-owned Korea Electric Power Co. to Studsvik Nuclear AB, in Nykoping, Sweden, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.
In Sweden, the rods “will be used for testing the fuel cladding, guide tubes, and spacer grids,” the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency stated. After the tests, the rods will be stored in Sweden for five years, after which the United States will have to dispose of them permanently, according to the notice.
By law, the U.S. must dispose of spent civilian and defense nuclear fuel in a permanent repository. To date, the U.S. has not built such a site, despite the selection of Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent repository. Typically, the DOE keeps waste from nuclear weapons program at former nuclear weapon sites, while commercial spent fuel created by U.S. utilities typically remains at the power plants where it was generated.
The amounts of nuclear material involved in the to-be-completed transfer are: 129 grams of uranium-235, 230 grams of plutonium, and nearly 19 kilograms of uranium, according to the notice of a proposed subsequent arrangement published in the Federal Register. The amounts of fissile uranium-235 and plutonium to be transferred to Sweden are far less than what would be required to build a nuclear weapon.
The transfer to Sweden would not happen before Oct. 30, 2019, according to the Federal Register note, which although published this week is dated Sept. 12.
An NNSA spokesperson said Wednesday that the agency would not comment on the details of the shipment, including the timing and mode of the transfer and the identity of the carrier.
The irradiated fuel rods are now at KEPCO Nuclear Fuel Co. in Daejeon, South Korea, just under 100 miles south of Seoul. Daejeon hosts both the state-owned corporation’s techno special alloy plant, which fabricates cladding tubes for nuclear fuel, and the headquarters of the government’s Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute.
