"New Doubts About Turning Plutonium Into a Fuel"

The New York Times reports that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe has contributed -- along with concerns about the nuclear weapons proliferation risks -- to new doubts about using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, or Mox, as commercial atomic reactor fuel. Fukushima Daiichi Reactor Number 3 contained a core fueled by 6% Mox, which Dr. Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists has said could result in even worse health impacts downwind and downstream than uranium fuel, if the Mox fuel escapes from its containment onto the winds and waters.