Experts urge Japan to rethink plutonium plant

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05166648.htm

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (Reuters) - A group of 27 scientists, nuclear experts and former officials urged Japan on Thursday to rethink a nearly completed plutonium reprocessing plant that could produce fuel for 1,000 warheads each year.

"Japan is about to join several nuclear-weapon states as a producer of separated plutonium on an industrial scale," the experts said in a joint letter posted on the Web site of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S. nonprofit organization focusing on environmental and nuclear safety issues.

The letter said the plant could produce up to 8 metric tons of plutonium a year -- enough for 1,000 weapons -- for its plutonium-based reactors. It said Japan had no need to increase its already large stockpile of plutonium.

"At a time when the nonproliferation regime is facing its greatest challenge, Japan should not proceed with its current plans for the start-up of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant," the letter said, adding that minimizing global stocks of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium should be a top priority.

I dislike like this worse than Iran having nuclear facilities. At least Iran has never attacked America.

[IChing]

1. I don't either

Would you post this also in the energy and environment forum? It needs to be there also.

[jpak]

10. Yes - please!

n/t

[salib]

2. I did not think that Japan was producing this for weapons

But was instead doing so for fuel, right? They then consume it in their own reactors, making it useless for weapons. However, this is one more place where anyone might steal some of this stuff and build a bomb. Also, Japan needs to solve the waste issue, which is expecially problematic for them, or whomever they manage to pay off to dump it on.

[IChing]

3. You can't use

8 metric tons of of plutonium a year in Japan, it will have to be shipped out of country.

No dangers there, on the high seas, earthquakes, and tsunamis.

[NNN0LHI]

6. You left out the most obvious possibility for its use

It could be used to build nuclear weapons.

Don

[oneighty]

4. Interesting

What is Japan to do?

Watch North and South Korea develop Nuclear Weapons?

Accept the fact that China already has Nuclear Weapons?

Wonder if the present and future rulers of United States will continue to protect them?

Maybe they should prepare for pre-emptive strikes against those that maybe might one day have Nuclear Weapons. ( Another Pearl Harbor type happening?)

Or maybe avoid another Fatman and Little Boy?

Can of worms Bush* has opened.

180

[Selatius]

5. Who here believes this is purely and entirely for peaceful purposes?

[NNN0LHI]

7. Just so you know crazy man John McCain thinks Japan should build nukes

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0509/p10s01-comv.html

<snip>The former president of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung, warns: "If North Korea gets nuclear weapons, the stance of Japan and our country towards nuclear weapons would change." Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona says the US should allow Japan to develop nuclear weapons.

[NNN0LHI]

8. Kick to show who the real nuclear proliferators are n/t

[jpak]

9. Moreover, reprocessing is completely uneconomic

Uranium ore prices would have to increase 20-fold ($200-600 a pound compared to the current $11 a pound) to make reprocessed plutonium fuel (MOX) competitive with conventional nuclear fuel.

The Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant will cost more than $20 billion when completed.

...and millions more each year to operate....

...and produce hundreds of cubic meters of high level liquid waste each year that has to be vitrified and buried (somewhere).

Any way you look at it, the Plutonium Economy sucks...

[IChing]

11. Love those breeder reactors

80 metric tons of plutonium is really only 17,6000 lbs with a half-life of 24,200 years.

[hunter]

12. This is a no-brainer for the Japanese. They are feeling insecure.

It's pretty clear that the United States has become a whacked out and very undependable nation. The Japanese believe that a plutonium economy will increase both their energy security and their (unspoken) military security.

They may be wrong about that, but that's the situation as they see it, and a letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists isn't likely to change their opinion.

George W. Bush and the powerful people he fronts for are insane. Thus our world becomes a more dangerous place.