[Contact: Aileen Mioko Smith Tel: +81 90 3620 9251]
24 January 2006 (Kyoto, Japan)—The Japan Atomic Energy Commission headed by Shunsuke Kondo today approved Japanese utilities’ Plutonium Utilization Plan released earlier this month. Japanese NGOs lambasted as “fiction” the utilities’ fiscal 2005 and 2006 plans which say 1.6 tons of plutonium will be consumed in Japanese nuclear reactors as MOX (mixed plutonium uranium oxide) fuel.
None of the nuclear power plants specified under the Plan has approval from local authorities to use the plutonium. Tokyo Electric which heads the Federation of Electric Power Companies could not name which plants would use the plutonium, yet says it will consume it. Nuclear power plants where consent from local authorities had not been applied for are included in the Plan. The Ohma “full-MOX” nuclear power plant which does not exist and does not have a reactor installation license is also included in the Plan as consuming plutonium.
Utilities were required under a Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) decision issued in August 2003 to state which reactors would use what amount of plutonium from which date and by when before they would be allowed to separate out the plutonium at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Aomori.
Aileen Mioko Smith, director of Green Action stated,” Japan today betrayed its 1997 pledge to the IAEA not to stockpile plutonium that isn’t required for implementing Japan’s nuclear program. This is totally unacceptable. The JAEC today also betrayed its own directive which said utilities must present concrete plans for consuming plutonium before they separated it out at Rokkasho. It’s clear this whole thing is driven in a frenzy to start up Rokkasho.”
In December of 1997, the Japanese government had pledged to the IAEA that it was committed to transparency in its nuclear fuel cycle program and that its program would be promoted “based on the principle that plutonium beyond the amount required to implement the program is not to be held, i.e. the principle of no surplus plutonium”.
(Available at: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/1998/infcirc549a1.pdf)
Furthermore, a fundamental technical problem exists. Japan lacks the capability to turn any plutonium produced at Rokkasho into MOX fuel. There is only a government “expectation” that a MOX fuel fabrication plant be fully operational by fiscal 2012.
Moreover, a massive cache of Japanese plutonium already exists: thirty-seven tons sit in Europe. Japan’s Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy issued in October 2005 gives priority to the consump-tion of this plutonium in Europe over any produced at Rokkasho.
Japan originally made its “no surplus” pledge in the interests of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Japan has now reneged on its international commitment amidst heightened political tension around disarmament and non-proliferation in North East Asia, and during its term as Chair of the IAEA Board of Governors.