Export of the Hanau MOX Facility and Its Possible Military Uses in China
Wolfgang Liebert and Michael Sailer
The Hanau plutonium plant was planned in the 1980s in order to produce special fuels for German nuclear power plants. For this purpose, plutonium, originating from the reprocessing of spent fuel elements, was to be processed together with uranium oxide to form uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel elements. The plant is so designed that the ceramic fuel elements can be produced in several chemical and mechanical process steps; these include pulverizing, compressing, sintering, and grinding, as well as filling the fuel tablets into fuel rods. In principle, the plant in Hanau is capable of producing a variety of end products: uranium fuel elements (without addition of plutonium), MOX fuel elements with a plutonium content of around 5% for use in typical power reactors, or MOX fuel elements with a plutonium content of 40% or more intended for use in breeder reactors.
The technical design of such a plant is especially complex and expensive, because it is necessary to solve a number of safety-related problems. These include, in particular, the problem of criticality (the possibility of a chain reaction owing to the handling of fissile materials in high and extra-high concentrations must be excluded), the risks to employees from radiation (especially through neutrons) and the risks posed by respirable radioactive dusts (especially plutonium dusts). As a consequence, the processing operations in the plant are performed either under remote control or using socalled gloveboxes, whose complex ventilation systems with pressure graduation prevent releases into the working areas. In addition, the plant components are provided with elaborate shields against neutron radiation.
The Hanau MOX facility was unable to go into operation because of fundamental concerns, unresolved issues of licensing under atomic energy law and lack of economic competitiveness of MOX fuel rods in comparison with conventional uranium fuels. After relinquishment on the part of Siemens, the builder and operator, the export of the plant to Russia was discussed from 1995 to 2000. This idea came to nothing. Now, consideration is being given to exporting the plant to China. This, in turn, throws up some serious questions relating to the plant’s usability for military purposes, the risks of nuclear proliferation associated with the export of the plant, and the question of whether it appears possible to restrict the use of the plant to exclusively civil uses. The present paper provides information and assessments on these issues.
Potential Use for Military Purposes
The Hanau plant is of modular construction and could therefore – at least in part – also be used directly for military purposes. For instance, a partial use for plutonium processing for the nuclear weapons programme is quite conceivable. A nuclear weapon requires the production of plutonium metal (around 4-8 kilograms) in the form of hollow sphere segments (so-called ‘pits’). Substantial parts of the Hanau plant can be used for this purpose. These include not only equipment for analysis purposes, but also plant components for the cleaning of plutonium, for its chemical conversion into metallic form, and for its dimensionally accurate mechanical processing. Equally, parts of the plant could be used for the recycling of nuclear weapons, with the plutonium cores being removed from older weapons and being reused in new weapons of similar or new design. This likewise requires the plutonium to be processed and, if necessary, cleaned.
In principle, all the parts of the Hanau plant are suitable for the processing of 100% fissile material and therefore for the handling of weapons-grade plutonium if – in order to achieve criticality safety – the quantities of fissile material present in the plant components are limited. The Hanau plant’s remote control equipment and use of gloveboxes would facilitate the handling and processing of weapons-grade plutonium. The gloveboxes could also be operated in an inert gas atmosphere (argon, for example), this being useful in connection with the processing steps for nuclear weapons containing metal plutonium.
Apart from such a direct military use of parts of the plant, the Hanau plant could also be used to copy essential sub-technologies of military interest. The copied technologies could then be used elsewhere for the processing of plutonium for the production of warheads.
An indirect form of military use might consist in the production of fuel for plutonium-producing reactors for the weapons programme. Such reactors, which may be of various types, require the production of fuels in a corresponding plant. This might involve the production of uranium or MOX fuels for special production reactors or for power reactors used for the weapons programme in parallel with the production of power. Fuel could also be produced for a fast breeder reactor which could then be used for plutonium production for weapons purposes.
China’s Bomb And Nuclear Policy
As is well known, China is one of the five established nuclear powers with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. China’s path to the atom bomb was levelled in part by support from the Soviet Union. In the second half of the 1950s, there was massive nuclear ‘friendly help’ which was only ended in 1960 when it became clear to the Soviets that they were unable to establish control over the Chinese programmes and that China’s goal was independent access to nuclear weapons. Following the withdrawal of Soviet advisers and engineers as well as termination of assistance with the already started construction of essential nuclear facilities, China initially set out on the uranium path to the bomb and suffered something of a delay before successfully coming onto the plutonium path.
The first nuclear weapons test took place as early as 1964 and involved an explosive force equivalent to 20 kilotonnes (kt) of TNT using highly enriched uranium (HEU). This first test already used a design which is, in principle, also suitable for the use of plutonium (implosion type). On this basis, China was able in 1966 to detonate a first fusion-boosted 200 kt nuclear weapon. One year later came the first test of a thermonuclear device using uranium-235 and uranium-238 as well as fusionable materials (lithium and deuterium) whose explosive force was of the order of magnitude of megatonnes. It took until late 1968 to test the first plutonium weapon. In 1971, China succeeded in testing a fusion-boosted plutonium bomb. It is reported that China in 1988 tested a nuclear weapon with a high proportion of neutron radiation (so-called neutron bomb). By 1996 China had carried out a total of 45 nuclear weapons tests. The first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile took place in August 1981 with the Dong Feng 5 (Easterly Wind).
China is a straggler within the club of official nuclear powers. This is true also of its efforts at nuclear nonproliferation. Whereas the major nuclear powers have enforced the Limited Test Ban Treaty since 1963, it was only in 1980 that China stopped its aboveground nuclear weapons tests. Only in 1984 did China become a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Not until 1992 was the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed. Only since 1997 has China supported international agreements of major supply countries on export controls in the field of weapons of mass destruction. In the decades before, China had apparently provided other countries with nuclear assistance of relevance for weapons, such as Pakistan (plutonium technology, centrifuge components), Iran (technologies in the field of uranium enrichment), and Algeria (research reactor).
Nuclear Weapons Arsenal
There is only a limited amount of reliable information on China’s nuclear weapons, because there are no detailed or comprehensive Chinese statements on which to rely. China’s present arsenal of nuclear weapons is likely to include some 400 warheads. Its nuclear weapons systems consist of a variety of ballistic missiles of different ranges, bomber planes based on Russian technology and one nuclearequipped submarine which is reportedly only partially operational. Of particular significance are probably 20 intercontinental Dong Feng 5 ballistic missiles (also known as CSS-4) with a range of 13,000 km. Their warheads have a destructive force equivalent to 4-5 million tonnes of TNT. The buildup of this 33 – China’s only – intercontinental ballistic missile system made only slow progress (only seven systems had been deployed by 1998).
China’s fleet of bombers is considered to be obsolete, likewise the majority of its rocket systems. The only solid-fuel rocket type is in use in the submarine. All other nuclear missiles are operated on liquid fuel, i.e. they are not on constant alert. However, like all the other nuclear powers, China is modernizing its arsenal. As is customary in nuclear weapons programmes, old warheads are periodically removed from the arsenal and replaced by new or more modern systems, for which the fissile material is processed and re-used. Although the Dong Feng 1 programme, whose goal was an intercontinental system with multiple warheads, has apparently been discontinued, intensive work is under way on the Dong Feng 31 programme instead. This is a solid-fuel missile of improved accuracy and with a range of 8,000 km.
Multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) warheads are being developed for this missile system. In 2000, knowledge was gained of a missile test with multiple warheads involving, in particular, the release of dummy warheads suitable for defeating or penetrating a missile defence system. Development work on MIRV systems has apparently already been in progress since the 1980s, as a response to US plans for missile defence programmes (which have changed since then only in their concrete technical design). The scandals of the late 1990s in relation to real or alleged Chinese espionage in US weapons laboratories turn on such modern nuclear weapons systems. China is in the meantime thought to have a MIRV capability, although MIRVing has apparently not yet occurred. According to a US National Intelligence Estimate of 2001, China is believed to be capable of building 75-100 MIRV warheads by 2015. The Dong Feng 31 is also being developed in a version with intercontinental range and is expected to replace the presently deployed Dong Feng 5 systems.
Fissile Material Production
China’s production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons can only be estimated with great uncertainty on the basis of presumed production capacities. It is assumed that, between 1964 and 1987 or 1989, a quantity of between 15 and 25 tonnes of highly enriched uranium was produced. Production of plutonium was started only later. At the Jinquan nuclear energy complex, a special production reactor went into service in 1967 and it was not until 1970, at the same location, that a slightly larger military reprocessing plant started operation, capable of separating the produced plutonium from the spent fuel elements. Initially, Soviet technology was used for this purpose. Later, China was able to employ its own separation technology, which is related to the PUREX process used in Western countries.
Owing to Chinese-Soviet co-operation, the first generation of nuclear plants with an important role in the weapons programme were situated a few hundred kilometres from Mongolia – within easy range of the Soviet military. Therefore, since the end of the 1960s, so-called ‘Third Line’ nuclear facilities have been constructed in the centre of China, thus more or less doubling all the essential facilities for materials production and also for nuclear weapons research and production. The latest estimate of Chinese plutonium production by the independent US researchers Wright and Gronlund from 2003 states that, by 1991, around 2-5 tonnes of plutonium had been separated. In the mid-1990s, China announced that it had stopped its production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons in 1991. If one assumes that a few hundred warheads each contain 4-8 kilograms of plutonium, then China could have reserves of plutonium which, according to these estimates, might be between just a few hundred kilograms and up to around three tonnes.
Impending Nuclear Weapons Expansion
US strategic planning has for some years been undergoing profound changes (Nuclear Posture Review of 2001, National Security Strategy of 2002, etc). Accordingly, the main objectives include the ongoing maintenance and modernization of the nuclear weapons arsenal, its integration into the offensive US capabilities, the build-up of ballistic missile defences, the development of bunker-busting nuclear weapons intended for actual use, as well as pre-emptive warfare – in particular against the ABC weapons potentials of other countries. Regardless of whether a US ballistic missile defence system can ever work, China considers its limited nuclear deterrent potential to be under threat and possibly at risk of being knocked out in the medium term by a preemptive US attack. This applies in particular to its small number of bunkered intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would be capable of reaching the whole of the USA. The fact of the matter is that US nuclear weapons are targeted at China and plans currently pursued by the US are giving fuel to Chinese suspicions.
Consequently, China is expected to respond to the US plans. According to the logic of nuclear strategists, the Chinese leadership must aim for the quantitative and qualitative upgrading of its arsenal in order to reduce its vulnerability to a US attack on its bunkered intercontinental ballistic missiles in combination with the possibly limited implementation of US ballistic missile defences. A suitable means of maintaining Chinese ‘deterrent potentials’ would be to deploy a far larger number of modernized intercontinental ballistic missiles, and also to equip them with multiple warheads, which would have to be newly produced (possibly adding decoys to the payload). The limited build-up with 200 warheads would already necessitate around one tonne of plutonium. No reliable assumption is possible as to whether China has the required corresponding reserves of plutonium. In the case of a larger-scale expansion program, which must be expected, China would be dependent on resuming its production of plutonium.
It must give cause for concern that, despite its declared moratorium on the production of fissile materials for weapons-related purposes, China has for a number of years refused to work together with the other nuclear powers to negotiate a formal cutoff treaty which would provide a binding international regulatory framework for a corresponding ban on production.
Breeder Project
With Russian assistance, an experimental breeder (Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor, CEFR) has been under construction since 2000. This fast breeder reactor will probably not be completed before 2005 and requires plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) of an average fissile material enrichment of around 50%. Almost 100 kg of uranium-235 and around 120 kg of plutonium are required for the initial fuel load. Therefore, a MOX facility like the Hanau plant is urgently required for the production of the fuel elements. China’s need is underlined by its previous efforts, once reported but now cancelled, to acquire fuel elements originally intended for the operation of the never-commissioned German breeder in Kalkar.
The purpose of breeders is to produce additional plutonium from natural uranium, positioned in the so-called breeding blanket around the reactor core, using the fast neutrons produced therein. This plutonium is of the highest weapons-grade quality, with an extremely high proportion of plutonium- 239. Consequently, the use of breeders would be particularly attractive for a nuclear weapons programme. A precedent is the use of the French experimental Phénix breeder for the French nuclear weapons programme. According to information from the IAEA, although – in contrast to the normal goal of a breeder programme – the Chinese CEFR does not envisage the production of plutonium, the design of the core includes storage space for spent fuel elements in the periphery of the core which could certainly be used for breeding. In addition to the experimental 65 MW CEFR breeder, China is already planning a large power reactor.
Dual Use, Chinese Style
In China there is no serious separation between the civil and military parts of the nuclear programme. This can be illustrated with reference to the role of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). A state-owned enterprise established in 1988 as the successor to the Ministry for Nuclear Industry, the CNNC comprises some 200 enterprises and institutions with almost 300,000 employees. Its purpose is to satisfy both military and civil requirements in the nuclear field. This is a classic dual-use enterprise with the widest possible responsibility, including the procurement, processing and production of fuel, the reprocessing of fuel, the treatment of waste, research and development for new reactors, technology transfers within China and with other countries, nuclear safety and radiation protection, etc. The CNNC has set up a number of sub-enterprises and was re-organized in 1999 together with other nuclear institutions. According to information from the CNNC itself, the civil proportion of its work within the associated institutions amounted to only 5% in 1980, whereas by 1996 it had risen to 75-80%. This is also a clear indication of China’s nuclear ambitions in the energy sector.
China is engaged in co-operation with nuclear firms from Germany, France, Canada, Russia and the US, which have a strong economic interest of their own in the expansion of the Chinese nuclear programme. Although a number of – in some cases imported – power reactors are already connected to the grid, nuclear power still accounts for less than one percent of all primary energy. In view of the high growth rates in primary energy demand of, on average, 3-4% per year, the International Energy Agency anticipates – in spite of massive plans for nuclear expansion – that, even by 2020, nuclear energy will still not account for even two percent of all primary energy use.
Will Safeguards Work?
The question is whether a military use of the Hanau plant or parts of it could be rendered impossible by safeguards implemented in China by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). IAEA safeguards are carried out in all those countries which are States Parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IAEA monitoring system in non-nuclear weapons states presently provides for the complete accounting of all flows of fissile materials between a country’s various installations in the form of the recording of incoming and outgoing materials. In addition, for some more complex (and particularly sensitive) installations, the flow of fissile materials is monitored within the installation itself at designated ‘transfer points’ which are in each case contractually fixed.
As a nuclear weapons state, China enjoys a privileged special status within the NPT and, accordingly, is not under any obligation to allow such complete monitoring of all its nuclear installations. All the five established nuclear weapons states allow only a small number of their installations to be monitored by the IAEA, with the consequence that there can be no accounting of the flows of fissile materials. Therefore, it is scarcely possible to prevent an indirect use of the Hanau plant for the production of plutonium for the nuclear weapons programme. If the aim is to prevent uranium or MOX fuels produced in the Hanau plant from being used in plutonium-producing reactors for the Chinese nuclear weapons programme, then the safeguards-based monitoring regime would also have to include all transfers from the plant to such reactors. Furthermore, it would be necessary to monitor all potential plutonium-producing reactors, including the experimental breeder reactor, and their spent fuel elements, including transfers to other plants (especially reprocessing plants). At any rate, IAEA monitoring of the Hanau plant itself would be completely inadequate and, in actual fact, pointless. This means that China would, in principle, have to submit to a safeguard system of the kind established in non-nuclear weapons states which allows inspection of the entire flow of fissile materials.
Need for New Types of Inspections
Even the described safeguard system would not be sufficient, because it involves in essence the accounting of the flows of fissile materials. This would do little to prevent the direct military use of parts of the Hanau plant. An effective inspection regime for the plant, once re-erected in China, would have to include regulations on what specific source, intermediate, and end products (permitted materials) could be handled in the plant and what technical options could be used for an appropriate inspection regime (inspection methods, locations, and intervals). Such an inspection regime does not presently exist and would have to be specially developed.
Equally, it would be necessary to implement safeguard inspections for the event that parts of the Hanau plant were re-erected in the civil-military or military nuclear industry elsewhere in China or for the event that copies were made of sensitive parts of the plant for use in the weapons programme. Once again, the conventional IAEA system of the accounting of fissile materials is inadequate in this case. The IAEA would only be presented with basic data on the construction of the plant and not with detailed information on the technical design of all the components; likewise, the ‘asset history’ of the components is not covered by the IAEA monitoring regime. These restrictions on the knowledge available to the IAEA are justified in particular on competition grounds in order to protect national or company-specific know-how. Accordingly, the IAEA would not seriously be able to check which specific parts of the plant were actually reerected at the plant’s new site, whether parts of the plant had been replaced and brought to other locations for use there. This is true to an even greater extent with regard to monitoring the use of any copies of technical components. An effective inspection regime would first have to record all the parts of the plant in detail, oversee their re-erection in China, establish a reporting regime for any subsequent changes and define an inspection regime for all essential components covering the entire lifecycle of the components. Such a nuclear inspection regime is so far without parallel and would have to be specially developed.
Risks of the Plutonium Economy
The construction of the Hanau fuel plant in China would represent a clear step towards the beginning of an extensive plutonium economy which China is planning. To date, however, there is still no sign of a major commercial reprocessing plant capable of separating from radioactive wastes sufficient quantities of plutonium for such a nuclear programme. The capacity of the Hanau plant, which could process five tonnes of plutonium per year, is at any rate massively oversized both for the present situation of the energy industry in China and also for the foreseeable future. (China has officially stated that it has not to date separated any plutonium from its civil power reactors. The military reprocessing capacities thought likely to exist at the moment would also be too small for use within the energy industry. Moreover, the complex separation and reuse of plutonium has proved to be uneconomic everywhere in the world).
The separation and processing of plutonium, the transport of plutonium and its handling at many different sites with the aim of its use in a reactor creates diverse possibilities for plutonium to be diverted for weapons-related purposes. Consequently, Germany cannot haven an interest in helping countries in other parts of the world to gain access to a technology which is so proliferation-prone.
These aspects were already considered in the case of the – cancelled – export of the Hanau plant to Russia. In the case of China, however, there is not even the intention to use the plant to make plutonium from disarmed warheads more inaccessible.
Where Would the Export of the Plant Lead to?
We must earnestly ask what the Chinese leadership wishes to use the Hanau plant for. High technology from the West obviously arouses fundamental desires. This gives cause for concern, because the structure of the Chinese nuclear complex is such that imported technology can be expected not to be put just to civil use, but may also resurface in a military context.
Since the high technical and safety standards of relevant components (or copies of them) must appear attractive, the possibility cannot be ruled out that parts of the Hanau plant will be used directly for the production of warheads as part of the nuclear weapons programme, thus contribution to the ongoing modernization of the Chinese nuclear weapons arsenal,. Equally, it is likely that the plant will be used indirectly for military purposes, namely for the production of fuel for plutonium-producing reactors. The military use of the Chinese breeder programme, which is dependent on a MOX facility like the Hanau plant, would be especially attractive for the weapons programme.
It would be naive to assume that China will not react to the new nuclear- strategic plans of the US. Massive Chinese nuclear weapons expansion would require plutonium in greater quantities than before. This would be especially true if China were to introduce multiple warhead technology (MIRV) for its weapons systems. Additional plutonium production would then probably be necessary, as would the expansion and/or modernization of a Chinese capacity for warhead production. The Hanau plant could thus become one important element within a Chinese nuclear weapons expansion programme.
Consequently, exporting the Hanau plant to China harbours a high risk of its being used directly or indirectly for military purposes, even if an inspection regime (IAEA safeguards) is established for the plant covering the various aspects discussed above. If more serious measures were to be taken to prevent possible military use, then much more would need to be done. China, as a nuclear weapon state, would have to declare itself willing to allow additional monitoring of the flows of fissile materials in all potentially downstream installations. These include all possible plutoniumproducing reactors, including the breeder, the reprocessing plants, as well as further installations. Such willingness, however, is most unlikely, because China, as a privileged nuclear power, will not consent to forms of monitoring of its civil-military nuclear programme which are not also established in the other nuclear weapon states. Even then, the typical form of IAEA monitoring of flows of fissile materials would not be sufficient. In order to rule out the possibility of direct military use of parts of the plant, it would even be necessary, as explained in greater detail above, to develop and then establish a completely new inspection regime. This would have to focus on the real end products of the plant, on all sensitive components, their whereabouts, as well as their possible use in other locations.
If, in response to US policy, there is quantitative and qualitative nuclear weapons expansion on the part of China, with the export of the Hanau plant from Germany making its contribution to this process, this would be a fiasco for German non-proliferation and disarmament policy. Chinese nuclear weapons expansion can serve neither German nor global interests. Consideration should also be given in this regard to the further destabilization of East and Southeast Asia, a region which is, already today, being seriously affected by the nuclear policy pursued by North Korea. The chain of reactions in countries such as Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Japan would be vast.
China’s actual intentions in seeking to import the plant remain unfathomable. The capacity of the Hanau plant would be completely oversized for a long time in relation to Chinese ambitions to establish a plutonium economy in the energy sector. The inherent risks are considerable. It has been German policy, consciously and properly, to adopt a different approach in Germany itself, namely to put an end to the plutonium economy.
As a final point, the provisions of the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act stipulate that the possibility of military use of exported goods must be ruled out. In our opinion, such a possibility definitely cannot be ruled out if the Hanau plant were exported to China.
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