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U.K. Facility Cannot Account for 30 Kg of Plutonium
A British nuclear fuel reprocessing plant reportedly cannot account for about 30 kilograms of plutonium, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Jan. 22, 2002). According to the London Times, the material from the Sellafield facility was designated last year as “unaccounted for,” AFP reported. A Sellafield spokeswoman said that there is no indication that the missing plutonium, enough to produce as many as eight nuclear weapons, left the facility. “This is material that is unaccounted for, and there is always a discrepancy between the physical inventory and the book inventory,” the spokeswoman was quoted as saying. “I wouldn’t say we would be alarmed by it, because we are only talking about a book figure here.” Independent experts expressed concern about the news, according to the Times. “They make this claim of an auditing problem but I would expect them to be overzealous in the current climate of fears about terrorism,” said independent nuclear consultant John Large (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Feb. 17).
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