Transportation of Nuclear Material: The Public Policy Debate and the Need for a Common Ground

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at PA TRAM. I have examined with great interest the range of topics on the program and I have to confess that I am no expert on any of these matters. However, as a State Department official with responsibilities for a range of international nuclear cooperation and nonproliferation questions, I have dealt with a number of issues involving the transportation of nuclear materials. I would like to review some of these with you today because I believe they could have a potentially profound impact on the smooth and efficient functioning of your industry, on international and nuclear cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and on the safe and secure disposition of various nuclear materials from both the civilian and military nuclear fuel cycles. Let me approach this historically. The transportation of nuclear materials both within and between countries has been a common but significant part of the nuclear industry since its inception. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s and much of the 1970s, the movement of nuclear materials within and across borders took place, for the most part, without much notice and with little, if any, controversy. This was due to a number of factors. ·The nuclear industry was still in its heyday. Public perceptions were of a nuclear energy option that offered great promise of cheap power, and public doubts about the safety of nuclear energy had not yet emerged. Organized opposition to nuclear energy was not yet born or was in its nascent stage, and the nuclear materials transported were primarily of the less sensitive kind-namely, natural uranium or lowenriched uranium. A consensus also prevailed for a long time about the importance of closing the fuel cycle and the consequent use of plutonium and light-water reactors and, eventually, the use of breeder reactors. Finally, for reasons of national security, the military uses of nuclear energy were shrouded in secrecy and little was known about the operation of nuclear facilities in the military cycle.