Stop Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant in Aomori Japan —
For Immediate Release: 25 April 2003 Contact: Aileen Mioko Smith Mobile: +81-90-3620-9251
On 25 April, Green Action and other Japanese citizen and consumer organizations issued an appeal to governments party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty asking them to urge Japan "not to go forward with separation of massive quantities of plutonium at the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant."
The Rokkasho plant (800 tons HM/year) is located in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan and is scheduled to begin uranium commissioning this June according to Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd (JNFL), owner/operator of the plant. Reprocessing is scheduled to start in 2005. The plant is capable of separating out 7 tons of weapons-capable plutonium a year.*
The Appeal is being sent by facsimile to key governments party to the NPT. Satomi Oba, director of the Hiroshima-based organization Plutonium Action Hiroshima, will be traveling to Switzerland on 28 April, addressing the Appeal further during the NPT PrepCom being held in Geneva 28 April – 9 May.
The Appeal is being issued by: (Alphabetical Order) Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, Consumers Union of Japan, Green Action, Greenpeace Japan, Mihama-no-Kai, No Nukes Asia Forum, Plutonium Action Hiroshima, and Stop the Monju.
The Appeal states, "The Japanese people have in our collective memory the devastating effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are therefore seriously concerned with the current build-up in nuclear tensions in the Far East — the Korean Peninsula and Japan. This, more than anything, urges us to write to you today."
"Japan has a program to use massive quantities of plutonium for civil use. In spite of there being no demand for plutonium in Japan due to a standstill in the implementation of this program, Japan is going forward with preparations to operate a huge reprocessing plant capable of separating out massive quantities of plutonium." Japan already has a huge plutonium surplus**, 4.1 tons in Japan and 32.4 tons stockpiled at reprocessing plants in France and Britain.
The organizations point out Japan’s problematic track record when it comes to plutonium management. In 1994 the then Nagasaki mayor Hitoshi Motoshima called plutonium management Tokaimura, "careless to the extreme". This year an SRD (Shipper/Receiver Difference) of 206 kilograms (recently questionably revised to 59 kilograms) of plutonium was recorded at the Tokai Reprocessing Plant (120 tons HM/year). The Appeal states, "Japanese sloppiness with plutonium management is a serious concern considering the scheduled operation of the much larger scale Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant."
The Rokkasho plant, if operated, will be the first large-scale plant capable of separating plutonium in a non-nuclear weapons state.
* According to the IAEA, 8 kilograms of reactor grade plutonium is one "significant quantity", enough to make one nuclear weapon.
**Latest figure: December 2001. Quantity in 2003 is greater.
Immediate release:
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Contact:
Aileen Mioko Smith Mobile:
+81-90-3620-9251