Markey Demands Trump Cancel Plan to Give Private Companies Enough Plutonium to Build 2,000 Nuclear Bombs

A prominent US senator on Tuesday implored President Donald Trump to cancel his administration's plan to give private companies enough plutonium to build around 2,000 nuclear bombs, warning the move raises "serious weapons proliferation concerns" along with potentially massive safety issues and conflicts of interest.

"If implemented, this would be the first time the US government has made weapons-grade plutonium available to private companies," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to Trump. "I urge you to cancel this misguided scheme."

The New York Times reported last week that the US Department of Energy currently has "more than 50 tons of surplus plutonium left over from nuclear weapons programs, and the agency had previously been planning to dilute much of that material and bury it."

But last May, Trump signed an executive order halting the dilution program and instructing his energy secretary to "establish a program to dispose of surplus plutonium by processing and making it available to industry in a form that can be utilized for the fabrication of fuel for advanced nuclear technologies."

Last Tuesday, the Energy Department said it has entered into "advanced negotiations" with five nuclear energy companies—Oklo, Flibe Energy, Exodys Energy, Shine Technologies, and Standard Nuclear—to potentially distribute the Cold War-era plutonium.

Markey noted in his letter that Energy Secretary Chris Wright previously served on the board of Oklo, a California-based nuclear technology company whose stock price jumped in response to the department's announcement.

"I am concerned that your administration is moving forward with plans to give plutonium to Oklo not because this makes
sense for the United States, but because Oklo stands to benefit financially and Secretary Wright is acting in his former company's interest. Secretary Wright's close ties to the company present an appearance of impropriety."

The senator also expressed opposition to the plan on its merits, warning that "the transfer of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry would increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, including to rogue states or terrorists."

"Your plan—which would provide US companies with plutonium from US military stocks and subsidize them both to reprocess plutonium domestically and export reprocessing technology—would reverse our successful nonproliferation policy," Markey wrote. "The United States cannot effectively discourage other countries from using plutonium for civil purposes if we use it ourselves."

Nuclear experts have raised similar concerns about the Trump administration's plan to transfer weapons-grade plutonium into the hands of private, for-profit corporations.

"Plutonium-based fuels and reprocessing have a poor track record when introduced in civilian nuclear energy programs," Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist who headed the Energy Department during the Obama administration, wrote last year, warning that transfer schemes such as the one put forth by Trump would "produce new radioactive waste streams that must be managed" and "elevate the risk of a safety or security incident at a nuclear facility."

In a social media post last week, Markey condemned the Trump administration's plan in scathing terms, writing that "using plutonium for nuclear power is stupid and dangerous."

"This material is used in nukes, and it’s too unsafe for widespread commercial use. Do we want Iran using plutonium in its reactor? No," Markey wrote. "Only Trump’s get-rich-quick bros would come up with this corrupt and moronic scheme."