I said that one of them, regarding reprocessing and MOX fuel, may hamstring our efforts to permanently dismantle nuclear weapons. The dismantlement of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States has left both countries with large inventories of perfectly machined classified components that could allow each country to rapidly rebuild nuclear arsenals. Both countries should set a goal of converting those excess inventories into non-weapon shapes as quickly as possible. The more permanent thosetransformations and the more verification that can accompany the conversion of that material, the better. Language in this year's Energy and Water Development Appropriations Legislation that I developed clearly sets out the importance of converting those shapes as part of an integrated plutonium disposition program.
Technical solutions exist.
However, the proposal to dispose of weapons plutonium as MOX runs into that old premise that MOX is bad despite its widespread use by our allies. I believe that MOX is the best technical solution. The economics of the MOX solution, however, need further study. Ideally, incentives can be developed to speed Russian materials conversion while reducing the cost of the U.S. effort. I said earlier that I would not advocate increased use of nuclear energy and ignore the nuclear waste problem.