The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration cleared the future transfer of some U.S.-origin uranium and plutonium, currently in irradiated fuel rods, from South Korea’s state-owned Korea Electric Power Co. to Studsvik Nuclear AB, in Nykoping, Sweden, according to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday.
In Sweden, the rods “will be used for testing the fuel cladding, guide tubes, and spacer grids,” the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency stated. After the tests, the rods will be stored in Sweden for five years, after which the United States will have to dispose of them permanently, according to the notice.
The amounts of nuclear material involved in the to-be-completed transfer are: 129 grams of uranium-235, 230 grams of plutonium, and nearly 19 kilograms of uranium, according to the notice of a proposed subsequent arrangement published in the Federal Register. The amounts of fissile uranium-235 and plutonium to be transferred to Sweden are far less than what would be required to build a nuclear weapon.
An NNSA spokesperson said the agency could not immediately reply to a question about either the timing or the mode of the impending shipment. The transfer would not happen until beginning Oct. 30, 2019, according to the Federal Register note, which although published this week is dated Sept. 12.
The irradiated fuel rods are now at KEPCO Nuclear Fuel Co. in Daejeon, South Korea, just under 100 miles south of Seoul. Daejeon hosts both the state-owned corporation’s techno special alloy plant, which fabricates cladding tubes for nuclear fuel, and the headquarters of the government’s Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute.
