US Policy for Plutonium: Civilian Use, Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Arms Reduction

Abstract

From the very beginning, the military and peaceful faces of plutonium have been clear to see. The fission energy of plutonium released in an uncontrolled chain reaction provides the enormously destructive force of the atom bomb. The same energy released slowly within the confines of a nuclear reactor provides energy for beneficial peaceful purposes, setting aside for the moment the concerns voiced about dangers to the environment and to public health and safety from the commercial production and use of plutonium as a nuclear fuel. Ever since the USA produced and used plutonium to make the bomb that devastated Nagasaki in 1945, US policy has been concerned with three facets of plutonium use: production for nuclear weapons, use as a nuclear fuel, and limiting the chances that plutonium might be diverted by government or stolen by criminals and terrorists from peaceful uses to make nuclear explosives (i.e., non-proliferation policy). An anticipated policy concern of the future is what to do with the plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads if the USA and the Soviet Union move beyond the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) to truly deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals.