Will Japan’s Nuclear Regulator Approve Plans to Restart Reactors Near Super Volcanoes?

[Translated from Japanese] [March 13, 2006] To: Mr. Toshihiro NikaiMinister of Economy, Trade and Industry As stated in the enclosed 9 March letter from Dr. Edwin Lyman (Union of Concerned Scientists) and Professor Frank von Hippel (Princeton University) to Aomori Governor Shingo Mimura, there are points that cannot be supported by facts in the explanation given by the Japanese Government to the six US Democratic members of Congress including Edward Markey, and to Aomori Prefecture. This concerns the international implications for nuclear proliferation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. I therefore request that you take the following action before beginning active tests at the plant: Provide a detailed technical account of…

Environmental NGO Resolution Eighth International Energy Forum Osaka, Japan20 September 2002 The 20th century was the fossil fuel century. To the middle of the century, most energy came from coal, and after the 1960’s the use of oil increased rapidly. Today’s worldwide consumption in energy continues to be dependent on fossil fuels, predominantly oil. These precious fossil fuels have contributed to the development of humanity, easing the burden of daily life. At the same time however, dependence on fossil fuels has caused or contributed to further aggravating the unequal distribution of the world’s wealth, energy wars or civil wars related to energy access, serious environmental destruction as a result of…

[18 January 2006] PDF version (472KB) Japan’s 1997 Pledge The government of Japan made a written and unequivocal pledge to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 1997 to uphold the “principle of no surplus plutonium.”*1 To honor this commitment, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission issued a Decision on 5 August 2003*2 which specified that electric utilities present concrete plans for utilizing plutonium before separating it from spent nuclear fuel at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. On 6 January 2006, the Federation of Electric Power Companies released its “Plutonium Utilization Plan.”*3 The Plan, however, does not comply with the specifications set forth by the Atomic Energy Commission. Defects of the…