One Euratom reactor was found to be vulnerable to terrorist attack during a mock exercise conducted by Dutch marines. The dimensions of the plutonium problem are even greater and more startling. If civilian plutonium programs proceed as planned, some 545 metric tons of plutonium will be separated from the spent fuel of nuclear power reactors by the year 2010, of which at least 265 metric tons will be stockpiled as surplus. Most of the plutonium will be recovered in facilities within Euratom. These amounts far exceed the approximately 200 metric tons of plutonium now in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the former Soviet Union combined.
Japan pursues the world's largest and most ambitious civilian plutonium program.
A sea shipment of 1.7 metric tons of plutonium from France in 1992 provoked an international outcry. Under current plans, Japan will acquire over 100 metric tons of plutonium by 2010. Given substantial delays in Japan's development of breeder reactors, a large surplus of separated plutonium will arise by the end of the century to the consternation of Japan's neighbors, despite Japan's insistence that it will not allow plutonium supply to exceed demand. At one Japanese plutonium fuel plant, some 70 kilograms of plutonium, equivalent to at least eight weapons, has not been accounted for, and Japan has been resisting requests by the IAEA to clean out the plant and measure the plutonium. The problem of civilian plutonium was highlighted recently by an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences that was convened to examine options for disposing of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.