Category: Documents

Japan’s Nuclear Power Policy and the Noto Peninsula
Monday, February 19, 2024
14:00-15:00
Language: English or Japanese with English interpretation

Speakers:
Susumu KITANO
Chief plaintiff / Shiga Nuclear Power Plant Must be Decommissioned! Lawsuit
Former member of the Ishikawa Prefectural Assembly

Shoko MURAKAMI
Chief Secretary for the Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy (CCNE)

Aileen Mioko SMITH
Executive Director, Green Action

Lawsuits / Webinars / Submissions / Symposiums / Booklets / Leaflets / Protest Statements

Lawsuit to stop Ohi nuclear power plant (ongoing: Osaka Court of Appeals)

This lawsuit is filed by 212 citizens against the Japanese government. Green Action director is co-chief plaintiff. The case is now in appellate court. (Photo: Osaka District Court, December 4, 2020. Day of Osaka District Court win. The verdict ruled that the government’s licenses for operating Kansai Electric’s Ohi Units 3 and 4 were illegal and revoked the licenses. Kansai Electric is the second largest electric utility in Japan and owner/operator of the greatest number of nuclear power plants.

Download: Report（PDF）

Minamata & Fukushima: Structural Violence in Environmental Disaster
Tuesday, April 12 12:00 – 14:00

https://icas.tuj.ac.jp/event/minamata-fukushima-structural-violence-in-environmental-disaster/

Zoom Meeting Access
April 12, 2022 12:00 PM (Noon) Tokyo – Start
https://temple.zoom.us/j/93245351283?pwd=c0xmemtMNVcvWkxHNTJkZGJYOG94QT09
Meeting ID: 932 4535 1283 | Passcode: 106014

Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus
www.tuj.ac.jp/icas

Information: Kyle Cleveland, ICAS Co-Director | Email: kylecl@temple.edu

ICAS events reflect the opinions of the speakers and participants, and do not represent the views of Temple University or the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies.

Date & Time:
Tuesday, April 12 12:00 – 14:00
Moderator:
Kyle Cleveland (ICAS Co-Director)
Registration:
Registration is encouraged (e-mail to icas@tuj.temple.edu), but not required. 登録なしでも参加できますので、直接会場へお越しください。
This event is organized by Kyle Cleveland, ICAS Co-Director.

21 June 2018

Dear Director General Yukiya Amano,

We are writing to you in advance of a submission by the Government of Japan on its plutonium stockpiling program. It is our understanding that the IAEA will receive by the end of this month an explanation from the Abe administration on how Japan intends to respond to growing international criticism of its plutonium stocks, which in 2016 stood at 46,900 kilograms. As with its earlier commitment to maintain its plutonium stockpile to the minimum level made by the Abe administration at the Hague Summit in 2014, we predict the same meaningless rhetorical commitments in June 2018.

The information to be submitted by the Japanese government will likely cite current policy, applied in 2003 and restated in its July 2017 Basic Policy for Nuclear Energy, “not to possess plutonium without specific purpose.” This notification to you is a warning that any commitment made by Japan on plutonium will once again, almost certainly, be based on wholly unrealistic ambitions for managing its stocks of plutonium to attain equilibrium in its supply and demand. The current crisis in the nations nuclear industry, which is certain to continue, holds no prospect for large scale plutonium stock reduction. As you are aware, this is not a new plutonium problem only emerging in recent years.

Nearly thirty years ago we exposed the risks and threats posed by Japan’s plutonium program. In 1999, we wrote to your predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, citing the predictable failure of Japan’s plans to utilize plutonium in the form of Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) fuel both in its stalled Fast Breeder Program and in Light Water Reactors. At that time, Japan’s plutonium stocks were 5,318kg held domestically, with a further 27,309kg held at reprocessing plants in the UK and France. The latter had grown dramatically from 10,844 in 1992 to this higher amount in less than 7 years. At that time there was no prospect of even this large amount of direct use weapons material being used in Japan’s LWR MOX program. At that time we warned the Director General that there was no justification for a planned plutonium MOX shipment to the Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 and Takahama unit 4 reactors, citing that the justification offered by the Government of Japan was, “false, given the lack of real demand for plutonium reactor fuel, its poor economics, as well all the environmental, human health and the direct proliferation risks it poses.”

The inaction of the IAEA to address these issues in the 1990’s to the present has in part contributed to the current situation which has escalated as we predicted. The current stockpile of Japan’s plutonium amounts to approximately 9,800kg held domestically, in addition to 37,100kg in Europe (20,800kg at the NDA Sellafield plant in the UK and 16,200kg at the Orano la Hague and Melox plants in France). This stock will increase by a further 1000kg in 2018 with transfer to Japanese utility holdings at the Sellafield plant. The growth of any nations stockpile of fissile material is of legitimate concern, but the case of Japan is unique, having grown from 10.8 tons to 47.9 tons in 25 years. As we urged in 1999, a first important international step in reducing the safety and proliferation risks of plutonium worldwide, and which remains even more urgent today, is the immediate cessation of all weapons-usable plutonium separation and use, whether for stated military or civil use. Ultimately, only a comprehensive fissile material treaty that ends all commercial trade in fissile material will be sufficient to counter the threats posed by the Japanese and other nations plutonium programs. We realize that as a former senior diplomat for the Government of Japan who actively promoted Japan’s right to pursue plutonium production and MOX use, a Comprehensive Fissile Material Treaty runs counter to your historical position , but in the interests of effective non proliferation there is no alternative.

The Fukushima Daiichi accident, as you know, involved a partially MOX fueled reactor in unit 3. The efforts of civil society in Japan, opposed to the inherent reduced safety margins of MOX use, led to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) being prevented from MOX loading in 1999 at Fukushima Daiichi as well as at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa unit 3 reactor. TEPCO finally loaded approximately 225 kg of plutonium in 28 Belgonucleaire / Cogema MOX fuel assemblies in unit 3 in August/September 2010. You are well aware of what happened less than six months later in March 2011.

Less acknowledged is that if TEPCO had proceeded with its MOX plans as scheduled in the 1990’s, there would potentially have been many hundreds of tons of spent MOX fuel in the Fukushima Daiichi reactor pools, as well as in the core fuel of units 3 and potentially at least one other reactor at the site. As the International MOX Assessment (IMA) in 1997 detailed, the consequences of a severe accident at a MOX fueled reactor are a/ more likely, and b/ involve greater consequences. These include a higher release fraction of plutonium into the environment with resultant increased latent cancer risks. Perhaps even more consequential would have been the heightened risk of loss of cooling function at the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pool(s) due to the higher heat generation of spent MOX fuel. As you also know, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) provided analysis to then Prime Minister Naoto Kan on 25th March 2011. Th AEC analysis warned that loss of cooling function and control at the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi, would have required potentially the evacuation of an area 150-250km from the nuclear plant. Rather than the necessary evacuation of 164,000 Japanese citizens, the nation could have been confronted with having to evacuate 50 million people, including those resident in Tokyo. As Prime Minister Kan was to say,

The future existence of Japan as a whole was at stake,” he said. “Something on that scale, an evacuation of 50 million, it would have been like a losing a huge war…We were only able to avert a 250-kilometre (160-mile) evacuation zone [around the plant] by a wafer-thin margin, thanks to the efforts of people who risked their lives. Next time, we might not be so lucky.

Luck indeed played a role in preventing water levels from being reduced in spent fuel pool unit 4, but it was also the efforts of civil society to prevent TEPCO’s full scale MOX fuel program that most likely prevented the Fukushima nuclear disaster from being cataclysmic. This recent history is important to understand in the context of the expected communication from the Japanese government to the IAEA and the U.S. State Department later this month. Japan’s plutonium MOX plans were always a dangerous fantasy – they were decades ago – and they are even more so today.
Our analysis over recent years, and to the present, indicates that Japan will fail to meet its nuclear restart target of 30GW by 2030 by a wide margin. Many more nuclear reactors are likely to be decommissioned in the coming years, joining the 17 that have been declared such since 2011. Legal challenges are underway at most nuclear plants across Japan, with four reactors currently loaded with plutonium MOX fuel (though one of these, Ikata-3, is shutdown after a citizen lawsuit secured an injunction from the Hiroshima High Court in December 2017 that will run until September 2018, but with possibility of further extension from the lower court.)

Japanese utilities have recently recommitted to operating with 16-18 reactors with plutonium MOX fuel. Given that it is unlikely that even this number of reactors in total will operate in the future, this vague and meaningless statement is less to do with the reality of the crisis Japanese utilities find themselves in, but rather a token offering to the Government to provide weak justification for business as usual in nuclear fuel cycle policy. The Federation of Electric Power Companies (FEPC) has history on this issue, having made the same commitment more than 20 years ago in 1997. Neither then nor today is their pledge credible.

In addition to the four reactors that have resumed operation with partial MOX fuel cores, it is uncertain how many of the remaining six reactors that have received MOX approval will actually restart during the next 10 years. They are all confronted with multiple challenges, including seismic faults, as well as legal and political opposition. Of the remaining six units, five are at high risk of never restarting, specifically Kashiwazaki Kariwa-3, Shika-1, Hamaoka-4, Tomari-3, Onagawa-3. Even if they were to restart and based on past performance there is little prospect of all these reactors attaining a one-third MOX core within the coming decade. As a consequence, if we suspend reality and take industry commitments seriously, Japan’s annual plutonium demand could in theory reach at most between 1-2 tons of plutonium per year. This would require at least one plutonium MOX fuel shipment each year from Europe – something never achieved in the past decades and unlikely to do so in the future. Nevertheless, even if that rate of plutonium demand could be attained it would be sometime between 2034 and 2056 before Japan’s plutonium stock in Europe was reduced to zero. Yet even that medium term timescale is not possible. Three of the reactors currently operating with MOX fuel, Takahama-3 and 4 and Genkai-3, will surpass 40 years operation in 2024 and it is unclear whether they will operate beyond that. A further six of MOX licensed reactors will exceed forty years by 2034. The future operation of conventional uranium fueled nuclear reactors in Japan remains highly uncertain, but it is even more so for those seeking to load plutonium MOX fuel, which will be strongly resisted by local populations, politicians and ourselves. One thing that is certain, any pledge by Japan to significantly reduce its plutonium stocks through MOX use will fail, as it has these past decades.

At the same time, Japan remains committed to the commercial operation of the 2.9 trillion yen ($26.37 billion) Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant in Aomori prefecture, with the potential to separate an additional 8000kg of plutonium each year. We long considered it near impossible that the plant would operate at full capacity – primarily for technical and design flaw reasons. The only reactor project that is relevant to Rokkasho-mura’s operation is the under construction Ohma ABWR in Aomori prefecture. Plans to operate this reactor with a 100 percent MOX core, amounting to as much as 5 tons of plutonium, remain the last hope for Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle. Yet, the reactor remains unfinished and subject to two lawsuits seeking its cancellation. Planned and delayed in the 1980’s, originally planned for operation by 2012, then 2014 its latest, but still unrealistic, schedule is for construction and possible operation to be finished in “2023 or 2024”. Even its owner, J-Power, which has only operated one experimental reactor in its history, acknowledges that, “It is still undecided about the operation start time.” Sitting in a high seismic zone and at risk from volcanic ash eruptions, the prospects of a successful operation of this unprecedented plutonium experiment as planned are close to zero. While J-Power and the Japanese government remain uncertain as to when the Ohma plant will commence operation, the citizens and city council of Hakodate, are committed to preventing its operation through lawsuits against the company and central government.

Any commitment made to the IAEA and the U.S. State Department by the Japanese government to only operate the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant to meet legitimate plutonium demand, is a clear contradiction. The only logical solution is for plans for commercial operation of the plutonium plant to be suspended indefinitely, leading to eventual decommissioning. Taking all these factors into account, there are no credible prospects for Japan to significantly reduce its plutonium stockpiles over the coming years through MOX fuel utilization.

Inexcusably, over many decades the IAEA has provided technical support and political justification for Japan’s wholly uneconomic and failed plutonium programs. To this day your Agency continues to actively promote the development of plutonium based plutonium fuel cycles, so called Generation IV technology, against all the historical evidence of its failure and in disregard for the safety, environmental and proliferation implications. One honorable exception was IAEA Deputy Director, William J. Dircks, who in 1992 at a meeting of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) stressed the, “urgent need to review once again our policies regarding plutonium and its use,” warning that the, “adverse economics of MOX fuel utilization” would result in MOX providing “little help…in dealing with surplus plutonium.” Having failed to heed this warning and those of many others, including those submitting this letter, successive Japanese governments and the IAEA have instead overseen a dramatic growth in so-called civilian but nuclear weapons usable plutonium stocks, including those of Japan, over the past quarter of century. We have little faith that the IAEA will act effectively this time. We would, however, be pleasantly surprised if we were to be proved wrong and a decision was made by the IAEA to take up the call to action by the IAEA’s former Deputy Director and civil society which is even more relevant and urgent today than it was nearly three decades ago.

Continued inaction by the IAEA and its continued active support for Japan’s plutonium program is a willful degradation of your institutions stated duty and commitment to effective non proliferation. However, given the IAEA’s track record, we will not be waiting for action on your part. Instead, we are confident and determined that civil society and the people of Japan, as in the years prior to March 2011, will act to protect our environment, health and economy from the threat of future severe accidents from this bankrupt plutonium program, leading ultimately to a policy change and the end of Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle program.

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Akebonobashi Co-op 2F-B, 8-5 Sumiyoshi-cho,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0065, Japan

Aileen Mioko Smith
Director
Green Action
Suite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203
Japan

Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist
Greenpeace Germany,
Attention to Greenpeace Japan,
8 Chome−13−11 NF bldg 2F
Nishishinjuku,
Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0023,
Japan

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PDF: Open Letter to the Director General Yukiya Amano, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 21 June 2018

Request for urgent action by UN Special Rapporteurs to urge the Japanese government not to cut off compensation and support to Fukushima evacuees, so as to allow them to decide freely whether or not to return home

Continue reading “To UN: Urge Japanese gov’ment to continue support of Fukushima evacuees”

Letter to Areva Japan addressing our concerns regarding production standards, quality control and, ultimately, safety of AREVA plutonium MOX fuel produced for Japanese utilities Continue reading “Activist committee voices safety, quality concerns about AREVA plutonium MOX fuel produced for Japanese utilities”

Frédéric Patalagoity,
President and Managing Director
AREVA Japan
Urban Toranomon, Bldg. 5F
1-16-4 Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-0001
Japan

July 21, 2016

Dear Frédéric Patalagoity,

We are writing to you to express our disappointment and concerns over the use of AREVA produced MOX fuel in Japanese nuclear power plants.

As you know we wrote to you on January 28^th of this year to request details over the quality of plutonium mixed oxide fuel supplied to Japan, specifically Kansai Electric. We have yet to receive a response to this letter (also attached to this letter).

As you will be aware the Ikata 3 reactor is due to restart operations shortly. Sixteen assemblies of MOX fuel supplied by AREVA in 2009 (as part of 21 assembly delivery) have been loaded into the reactor. As with the fuel supplied to Takahama, there are major doubts over the safety of the MOX fuel about to be used in Ikata, including quality control issues related to the thermal stability of the fuel.

We are alarmed by the lack of transparency over issues of fundamental nuclear safety demonstrated by AREVA’s lack of response.  At a time of unprecedented crisis for the global business operations of AREVA, failure to provide information that is in the public interest and that of nuclear safety is both unacceptable and poor business practice. Once again we calling on AREVA to release immediately the actual quality control data for MOX fuel assemblies supplied to both Kansai Electric’s  Takahama 3&4 reactors, and Shikoku Electric’s  Ikata 3 reactor.

Yours sincerely,
Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany

Aileen Mioko Smith
Executive Director,
Green Action
Kyoto

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Tokyo

Hideyuki Koyama
Director,
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai)
Osaka

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PDF: Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-07-21

日本語訳

Frédéric Patalagoity,
President and Managing Director
AREVA Japan
Urban Toranomon, Bld 5F 1-16-4
Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-0001
Japan

January 28th 2016

Dear Frédéric Patalagoity,

We are writing to you to outline our concerns with the production standards, quality control and, ultimately, safety of AREVA plutonium MOX fuel produced for Japanese utilities. Specifically the planned use of 30 MOX assemblies in the Takahama reactor units 3&4, owned by Kansai Electric.

As you will be aware it is fifteen years since the poor quality control and production standards of plutonium MOX fuel was first disclosed in the case of 8 MOX fuel assemblies manufactured by the then British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) at Sellafield in the UK, and delivered to the Kansai Electric reactor Takahama unit 4 in Fukui prefecture. As a result of our analysis, based on original quality control data that BNFL were forced to disclose publicly at that time, Green Action and Mihama-no-Kai filed a legal challenge. For two month both Kansai Electric and BNFL denied that the fuel had falsified quality control data. However, in December 1999, one day before the court ruling, Kansai Electric and BNFL were forced to confirm in that plutonium MOX fuel to be used in Takahama 4 contained falsified quality control data. As you know the fuel was returned to the UK and scrapped.

In 1999 and 2000 we produced analysis that showed production and quality control standards for MOX fuel produced using the MIMAS method, including at the Cogema/AREVA Melox plant, were actually of a lower standard than used by BNFL. This was used by a legal challenge to the Fukushima District court on behalf of 1000 plaintiffs in challenging the loading of 32 MOX fuel assemblies into the Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 reactor. The MOX fuel was manufactured using the MIMAS method, under a contract between Tokyo Electric and COMMOX, of which Cogema was a lead agency. While the judgement of the Fukushima District Court did not uphold the lawsuits complaint, the judgement also made clear that quality control data for the MOX fuel should be publicly disclosed. No such data was released by COMMOX in the intervening years. As a consequence of the doubts and controversy over the safety and quality of MOX fuel, Tokyo Electric were prevented from use of the 32 assemblies of MOX fuel until September 2010, six months prior to the March 2011 disaster.

You will also be aware that 28 MOX assemblies delivered to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata in 2001, as a consequence of the controversy over the quality and safety of MOX fuel and the opposition of the people of Kariwa, was not loaded into unit 3 as planned. Nearly 15 years later that plutonium fuel remains unused and stored in the cooling pool at the reactor site.

As AREVA sought to restart its MOX business with Japanese utilities the issue of quality control and production standards persisted. Twelve AREVA MOX fuel assemblies, containing 552kg of plutonium were delivered to the Takahama plant in 2010, eight of which were loaded into unit 3. Our analysis at the time found that there were disagreements between AREVA and Nuclear Fuel Industries Ltd (the developer and design code verifier of the MOX fuel and contractor acting on behalf of Kansai Electric and other Japanese power companies). Specifically over the MOX fuel quality and production standards to be used for the manufacture of Japanese fuel at AREVA’s Melox fuel production plant in Marcoule, France, including for Takahama. As a result of AREVA’s production problems, and their intransigence, NFI agreed to AREVA’s insistence that a lower standard of production and quality control would be used for the production of MOX fuel, including for that produced for Kansai Electric. AREVA failed to publicly provide quality control data at this time when challenged by us in 2010.

As you know the safety implications of MOX fuel use are severe. This is made worse by significant problems with the quality control and production standards that exist at the Melox plant.

The MIMAS production technology used at Melox has a multiple problems, including in relation to a fundamental issue for MOX fuel, Thermal Stability. If the plutonium fuel pellets swell under heat alone, and as internal pressure builds up from gaseous fission products, a gas-filled pellet-cladding gap can occur. This has several nuclear safety consequences. Not least that in the event of a loss of coolant accident, the MOX fuel, which may already be fractious, would be further more likely to fragment and “relocate”. The heterogeneous fuel structure can also increase the chance that fuel rods will rupture and block coolant channels if a transient occurs, again potentially impacting cooling function of the reactor core. The reactor safety implications of not being able to sufficiently cool the reactor core fuel are obvious, not least from the meltdown of three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011. This underscores the importance of achieving the highest nuclear fuel production standards, and applying the most rigorous quality control and inspection. Neither of these are possible at the Melox plant.

The thermal stability problem that exists with Melox produced MOX fuel is but one of multiple concerns we have with plans to operate Japanese reactors with AREVA supplied fuel. The fact that five years after delivery of MOX fuel to Takahama, AREVA has made no effort to provide details on their production and quality control standards is unacceptable to the people of Japan. Already subjected to the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the people of Japan are now confronted with the risks of the restart of the Takahama reactor units 3 and 4, to be operated with 24 assemblies and 4 assemblies of AREVA MOX fuel, containing 1,088kg and 184kg of plutonium respectively.

The failure of the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to re-assess the risks of MOX fuel use in Japan is deeply regrettable and we have challenged them on this, relying as they do on the reviews conducted by the discredited NISA. At the same time, AREVA as the manufacturer of this substandard product, has a duty to publicly disclose all relevant and original data on the quality control and production standards of its fuel that is about to be used in the Takahama reactors.

It is all the more critical that AREVA release the quality control data for the Takahama MOX fuel, as in 2010 the French nuclear safety regulator, ASN, confirmed to Greenpeace France in relation to the fuel then being shipped to Japan for use in Takahama unit 3, that, “The ASN is not involved in the quality control of production destined for Japanese utilities.” With neither French or Japanese regulators overseeing MOX fuel standards and quality control there clearly are additional major failures and risks from Kansai Electric’s plans to use AREVA MOX fuel. Without a commitment to transparency on this issue, assurances that the fuel is safe to use are meaningless.

We understand that AREVA have multiple threats and challenges to their future business prospects. Securing additional MOX business with Japanese utilities, including new MOX fuel manufacture, must rank high in your priorities given the 16,000kg of plutonium belonging to Japan currently stored in France. This will require the transport of many hundreds tons of MOX fuel from France, including that scheduled for 2016. But we would contend that a failure to put safety first and above commercial interests is in no ones interests, including those of AREVA.

Conducting a nuclear test on the people of Fukui, Kansai region and wider Japan, is never acceptable. As we approach the anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi accident it is even more reprehensible that AREVA has so far refused to fully disclose all relevant data on its MOX production problems at Melox. We are calling on you to release immediately the actual quality control data for the 30 MOX fuel assemblies about to irradiated in the Takahama reactors.

Yours sincerely,

Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany

Aileen Mioko Smith
Executive Director,
Green Action, Kyoto

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information 
Center
Tokyo

Hideyuki Koyama
Director,
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, 
Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants
(Mihama-no-Kai)
Osaka

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PDF: Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-01-28

日本語訳

Plutonium Shipment to Depart Japan for United States – Exposes Failure Of Global Reprocessing Programs

March 22nd 2016, Tokyo…The shipment of weapons-grade plutonium at the port of Tokai, Ibaraki prefecture departing later today, exposes the failure of global plutonium reprocessing programs and the threat from current Japanese nuclear policy, five non-governmental organizations charged today.(1) The cargo of 331kg of plutonium was loaded on to the Pacific Egret, an armed British nuclear transport ship, after it arrived at Tokai at 08.00 March 21st. Armed Japanese coastguard vessels, including the Shikishima, are outside the port and are expected to escort the plutonium shipment while inside Japanese coastal waters. The shipment is being undertaken in a failed U.S. policy attempt to reduce the threat from nuclear weapons materials worldwide.
The plutonium cargo to Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States, is sufficient to make over 110 nuclear weapons. However, the plutonium stockpile remaining in Japan is sufficient for over 1800 nuclear weapons, and the nation`s total plutonium stocks of over 47,000kg– including material stored in France and the UK – is sufficient for over 9400 nuclear weapons.

For more than five decades, Japanese nuclear policy has been based on the production and use of plutonium as a nuclear fuel. However, the failure of both its breeder program and plans to use plutonium as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in light water reactors, has led to Japan acquiring the largest stockpile of weapons usable plutonium of any non nuclear weapon state. Operation of the 2.1 trillion yen Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant in Aomori prefecture was recently postponed for the 23rd time. The Japanese government is aiming to pass legislation in the Japanese Diet to try and secure continued financing for Rokkasho from power companies that are facing a deeply uncertain future. Plans to operate Rokkasho from 2018 mean that Japan’s plutonium stocks could rise to as much as 93,000kg of plutonium by 2025.

As a result of reprocessing at the Sellafield nuclear complex in England, including from Japanese reactor spent fuel, over 126 tons of plutonium is stored at the site with no plans for its use. Total global stocks of so-called commercial reactor-grade plutonium was 271 tons at the end of 2014. This amount far exceeds the total amount in all military programs of 140 (+/-10) tons.(2)

“The global reprocessing of spent fuel has created a plutonium nightmare that threatens nuclear weapons proliferation. The UK, France and Japan have led this disastrous program, for which there is no economic rationale,” said Martin Forwood of CORE in the UK. “The clear warning to Japan from here in the UK, which has accumulated over 120 tons of plutonium and with no ability or plans to use it commercially, is, don’t start up the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant – it does not solve your nuclear waste problem but makes it far worse and produces vast amounts of weapons material that is only a security and proliferation threat. It’s time to scrap Japan’s plans for further plutonium production,” said Forwood.

Two reactors, Takahama 3 and 4, owned by Kansai Electric, began operation in January and February 2016 loaded with plutonium MOX fuel, with unit 3 operating with 24 assemblies containing 1,088kg of plutonium and unit 4 with 4 assemblies containing 184kg of plutonium. Unit 4 shut down due to an electrical failure three days after start up, while unit 3 was forced to shut down on March 10thfollowing a court order. Both reactors remain shut down and are subject of a court injunction preventing operation issued by the Otsu district court, Shiga prefecture on March 9th. They are expected to be non operational for many months. Of the 26 reactors both approved and still under review by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Ikata-3, Genkai-3 and Tomari-3 are all intended to operate with plutonium MOX fuel.

“The United States has helped create the global plutonium crisis by approving Japan’s program over decades. Dumping hundreds of kilograms of plutonium in the United States only creates the illusion that something is being done – in reality it solves nothing. With the nuclear reactor program in Japan in disarray, with no credible program for either restarting most reactors or using large amounts of this plutonium, if ever there was a time to abandon its current doomed nuclear energy policy, it is now. The U.S.-Japan Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, the basis for Japan accumulating vast stocks of weapons material, is up for re-negotiation in 2018 – approval for Japan to continue acquiring plutonium must be terminated,”said Tom Clements of Savannah River Site Watch.

The Department of Energy has no plans for final disposal of the Japanese plutonium, which will be added to the existing stockpile of 13 tons at the Savannah River Site, demonstrating that the shipment is largely a commercial dumping operation to secure funds for the beleaguered weapons material production site near Aiken, South Carolina, as pointed out by Savannah River Site Watch.

For more detailed analysis of Japan’s plutonium program and future prospects see Nuclear Proliferation in Plain Sight: Japan’s Plutonium Fuel Cycle–A Technical and Economic Failure But a Strategic Success, Japan Focus, March 2016 – apjjf.org/-shaun-burnie–frank-barnaby–tom-clements–aileen-mioko-smith–kendra-ulrich/4860/article.pdf

For further information:

Hideyuki Ban, Co-Director CNIC –+81-3-3357-3800 –www.cnic.jp/english/?p=3182

Aileen Mioko Smith – Executive Director Green Action –+81 90 3620 9251 –greenaction-japan.org/en/

Tom Clements – Director Savannah River Site Watch -+1 803 240 7268 –www.srswatch.org

Martin Forwood – CORE -+44 1229 716523 –corecumbria.co.uk

Shaun Burnie – Greenpeace Germany –+81 80 5088 3351 –www.greenpeace.org/japan/ja/campaign/energy-en/

Notes

1 – The five organizations are: Citizens Nuclear Information Center, Japan, Green Action, Kyoto, Savannah River Site Watch, CORE, UK, and Greenpeace. The Pacific Egret and its escort ship, Pacific Heron, lightly armed UK flagged vessels arrived in Kobe port from Barrow-in-Furness, England on March 4th. The Egret and Heron after departing Japan today will sail together most likely through the South Pacific to the east coast of the United States, with arrival expected in early May. The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Material Management and Minimization (M3), formerly known as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), describes itself as a part of the U.S. national security strategy of preventing the acquisition of nuclear materials for use in weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and other acts of terrorism. The M3 mission is to reduce vulnerable nuclear materials located primarily at civilian sites worldwide, and in the case of Japan the NNSA identified gap nuclear material (plutonium), which presents a potential threat to nonproliferation goals and may not have adequately safe and secure management options – see Environmental Assessment For Gap Material Plutonium – Transport, Receipt, And Processing, DOE/EA-2024 December 2015, energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/12/f27/EA-2024-FEA-2015.pdf

2 – Global Fissile Material Report 2015 – Nuclear Weapon and Fissile Material Stockpiles and Production

Eighth annual report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, see fissilematerials.org/library/gfmr15.pdf

3 – During the March 2014 Hague Nuclear Security Summit, Prime Minister Abe and President Obama “pledged to remove and dispose of all highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium from the Fast Critical Assembly (FCA) at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Japan”. Their pledge involved 331kg of plutonium. The 2016 summit from March 31st – April 2nd 2016 in Washington DC, will be the last. See nis2016.orgm/articles/SB10001424052970203658804576638392537430156