provision giving the United States a veto over India's reprocessing of the Tarapur spent fuel to separate out pure plutonium --- a nuclear weapons material. India, however, refuses to acknowledge the

of stockpiles of hundreds of tons of weapon-usable plutonium that is occurring in nations that reprocess spent nuclear fuel like the U.K. and France. In comparison, the U.S. moratorium on reprocessing

As a result, I conclude that reprocessing and the use of plutonium fuels remain one of the clear links between nuclear power programs and the risk of nuclear weapons spread. The second old debate is

Three-quarters of the spent fuel being reprocessed today for these plutonium programs is U.S.-origin material obligated under U.S. law. Because of the built-in bias, as I perceive it, against causing

If the nation operates commercial reprocessing plants as well, it will also possess stockpiles of separated plutonium.) Under these circumstances, it is apparent that spent fuel in a sealed geologic repository

moratorium on increasing the stockpile of separated plutonium by the suspension of spent fuel reprocessing. To support this moratorium, it will be necessary to design, license, and construct a dry storage

given the already large surpluses of separated plutonium and the associated problems of reprocessing waste. The U.K. now acknowledges, in response to other North Atlantic nations that participate in the

Reprocessing also produces plutonium that can be used in weapons, which is much more costly to store and safeguard than the spent fuel from which it is separated. And since it is not technically feasible

expansion of nuclear power and for reconsideration of reprocessing and use of plutonium, an atom bomb material, as reactor fuel, is a 21st century sirens song. This invitation to catastrophe is especially

India has announced its intention to begin reprocessing Tarapur spent fuel into plutonium by the end of 1983 or the beginning of 1984 despite the U.S. position that, under the U.S.-India Tarapur agreement,