One of these ships would carry the controversial MOX shipment. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. MOX fact sheet explains. Up to 10 percent of MOX fuel is plutonium. Currently, reactor operators can load up to one third of a light water reactor core with MOX fuel, consuming up to two tonnes of plutonium at any one time. Japan's nuclear industry hopes that shipments of mixed-oxide fuel from Europe to Japan will prove less controversial than previous transports of separated plutonium in 1996 and 1998 that raised objections from nations all along the routes.
Plutonium is a key ingredient of nuclear weapons.
Less than eight kilograms is enough to construct a bomb. Under the terms of the nuclear-cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Japan, a transportation plan for any shipment containing plutonium extracted from nuclear fuel originally supplied by the U.S. for use in Japan's power reactors is subject to U.S. approval. In 1992, the United States required Japan to use a gunboat to escort a shipment of plutonium from France to Japan. Nonetheless, Japan is pressing the U.S. not to require an armed-escort vessel for MOX fuel shipments. The U.S. State Department has not commented on Japan's current plans to ship the MOX unescorted.