Komeito as countervailing power
EDITORIAL
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/print/ed20130107a1.html
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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130107a3.html
As plutonium hoard grows, so do Japan's headaches
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
AP
ROKKASHO, Aomori Pref. - How is an atomic-powered island nation
riddled with fault lines supposed to handle its nuclear waste? Part
of the answer was supposed to come from this windswept village along
the country's northern coast.
By hosting a high-tech facility to convert spent fuel into a
plutonium-uranium mix designed for the next generation of reactors,
Rokkasho was supposed to provide fuel while minimizing nuclear waste
storage problems. Those ambitions are falling apart because years of
attempts to build a "fast breeder" reactor, which would use the
reprocessed fuel, appear to be ending in failure.
But Japan still intends to reprocess spent fuel at Rokkasho. It sees
few other options, even though it will mean extracting plutonium that
could be used to make nuclear weapons.
If the reprocessing plant is closed down, some 3,000 tons of spent
waste piling up there will have to go back to the nuclear plants that
made it, and those already are running low on storage space. There is
scant prospect for building a long-term nuclear waste disposal site
in a country where no one wants one in their backyard.
So work continues at Rokkasho, where the reprocessing unit remains in
testing mode despite being more than 30 years in the making, and the
plant that is meant to produce plutonium-uranium fuel remains under
construction.
The AP was recently granted a rare and exclusive tour of the plant,
where spent fuel rods lie submerged in water in a gigantic, dimly lit
pool.
The effort continues on the assumption that the plutonium Japan has
produced - 45 tons so far - will be used in reactors, even though
that is not close to happening to a significant degree.
In nearby Oma, construction is set to resume on an advanced reactor
that is not a fast-breeder but can use more plutonium than
conventional reactors.
Its construction, which began in 2008 with an eye to the plant going
online in 2014, has been suspended since the March 2011 Fukushima
nuclear meltdowns, and could face further delays as the new nuclear
watchdog prepares new safety guidelines.
If the government decides that it cannot use the plutonium, it will
be breaking international pledges aimed at preventing the spread of
weapons-grade nuclear material.
It already has enough plutonium to make hundreds of nuclear bombs -
10 tons of it at home and the rest in Britain and France, where
Japan's spent fuel is usually processed.
Countries such as the United States and Britain have similar problems
with nuclear waste storage, but Japan's population density and
seismic activity, combined with the Fukushima disaster, make its
situation more untenable in the eyes of its nuclear energy opponents.
Some compare it to building an apartment without a toilet.
"Our nuclear policy was a fiction," former National Policy Minister
Seiji Maehara told a Diet panel in November.
"We have been aware of the two crucial problems. One is the fuel
cycle: The fast-breeder is not ready. The other is the back-end
(waste disposal) issue," he said."They had never been resolved, but
we pushed for the nuclear programs anyway," Maehara said.
Nuclear power is likely to be part of Japan for some time to come,
even though just two of its 50 functioning reactors are operating and
it recently pledged to phase out nuclear power by 2040.
That pledge was made by a government that was trounced in last
month's elections, and the conservative Liberal Democratic Party,
back in the driver's seat, was the force that brought atomic power to
Japan to begin with.
But LDP members have said they will spend the next 10 years figuring
out the best energy mix, effectively putting a freeze on the nuclear
phaseout.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that he may reconsider the
previous government's decision not to build additional reactors.
Construction of Rokkasho's reprocessing plant started in 1993 and
that unit alone has cost ¥2.2 trillion so far. Rokkasho's operational
cost through 2060 will be a massive ¥43 trillion, according to a
recent government estimate.
The reprocessing facility at the extremely high-security plant is
designed to extract uranium and plutonium from spent fuel to
fabricate MOX - mixed oxide fuel, a mix of the two radioactive
elements. The MOX fabrication plant is set to be operational in 2016.
Conventional light-water reactors use uranium and produce some
plutonium during fission. Reprocessing creates an opportunity to
reuse the spent fuel rather than storing it as waste, but the
stockpiling of plutonium produced in the process raises concerns
about nuclear proliferation.
Fast-breeder reactors are supposed to solve part of that problem.
They run on both uranium and plutonium, and they can produce more
fuel than they consume because they convert uranium isotopes that do
not fission readily into plutonium.
Several countries have developed or are building them, but none has
succeeded in building one for commercial use.
The United States, France and Germany have abandoned plans due to
cost and safety concerns.
The prototype Monju fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture had been
in the works for nearly 50 years, but after repeated problems,
authorities last summer pulled the plug, deeming the project
unworkable and unsafe.
Monju successfully generated power using MOX in 1995, but months
later, a massive leak of sodium coolant caused a fire. Monju was
given another test run in 2010 but stopped again after a fuel
exchanger fell right into the reactor vessel, where it stayed for
months.
Some experts also suspect that the reactor sits on an active fault line.
An independent team commissioned by the new Nuclear Regulation
Authority is set to inspect faults at Monju early this year.
MOX was also burned in four of the country's conventional reactors
beginning in 2009.
These reactors can use MOX for up to a third of their fuel, but that
makes the fuel riskier because the plutonium is easier to heat up.
Three of the conventional reactors that used MOX were shut down for
regular inspections around the time three Fukushima reactors exploded
and melted down following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The fourth reactor that used MOX was among those that melted down.
Plant and government officials deny that the reactor explosion was
related to MOX, although traces of plutonium from the unit were found
far away from the plant afterward.
Japan hopes to use MOX fuel in as many as 18 reactors by 2015,
according to a Rokkasho brochure produced by its operator in November.
However, even conventionally powered nuclear reactors are unpopular
in Japan, and using MOX will raise even more concerns.
When launched, Rokkasho could reprocess 800 tons of spent fuel each
year, producing about 5 tons of plutonium and 130 tons of MOX per
year, becoming the world's No. 2 MOX fabrication plant after France's
Areva, according to Rokkasho's operator.
The government and the nuclear industry hope to use much of the
plutonium at Oma's advanced plant, which could use three times more
plutonium than a conventional reactor.
Meanwhile, the plutonium stockpile grows.
Including the amount not yet separated from spent fuel, Japan has
nearly 160 tons.
Few countries have more, though the U.S., Russia and Great Britain
have substantially more.
"Our plutonium storage is strictly controlled, and it is extremely
important for us to burn it as MOX fuel so we don't possess excess
plutonium stockpile," said Kazuo Sakai, senior executive director of
Rokkasho's operator, JNFL, a joint venture of nine Japanese nuclear
plant owners.
Rokkasho's reprocessing plant extracted about 2 tons of plutonium
from 2006 to 2010, but it has been plagued with mechanical problems,
and its commercial launch has been delayed for years.
The operator most recently delayed the official launch of its
plutonium-extracting unit until next year.
The extracted plutonium will sit there for at least three more years
until Rokkasho's MOX fabrication starts up.
Giving up on using plutonium for power will cause Japan to break its
international pledge not to possess excess plutonium not designated
for power generation.
That is why Japan's nuclear phaseout plan drew concern from
Washington; the country will end up with tons of plutonium left over.
To reassure Japan's allies, government officials said the plan is
only a goal, not a commitment.
Japan is the only nation without nuclear weapons that is allowed
under international law to enrich uranium and extract plutonium
without much scrutiny.
Government officials say they should keep the privilege. They also
want to hold on to nuclear power and reprocessing technology so they
can export that expertise to emerging economies.
Many officials also want to keep Rokkasho going, especially those in
Aomori Prefecture, which hosts the reprocessing plant.
Residents don't want to lose funding and jobs, though they fear their
prefecture may become a waste dump.
Rokkasho Mayor Kenji Furukawa said the plant, its affiliates and
related businesses provide most of the jobs in his village of 11,000.
"Without the plant, this is going to be a marginal place," he said.
But Rokkasho farmer Keiko Kikukawa says her neighbors should stop
relying on nuclear money.
"It's so unfair that Rokkasho is stuck with the nuclear garbage from
all over Japan," she said, walking through a field where she had
harvested organic rhubarb. "We're dumping it all onto our offspring
to take care of."
Nearly 17,000 tons of spent fuel is being stored at power plants
nationwide, almost entirely in storage pools. Their storage space is
70 percent filled on average.
Most pools will max out within several years if Rokkasho closes down,
forcing spent fuel to be returned, according to estimates by a
government fuel-cycle panel.
Rokkasho alone will not be able to handle all the spent fuel coming
out once approved reactors go back online, and the clock is ticking
for operators to take steps to create extra space for spent fuel at
each plant, Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka
said.
"Even if we operate Rokkasho, there is more spent fuel coming out
than it can process. It's just out of balance," he said.
A more permanent solution - an underground repository that can keep
nuclear waste safe for tens of thousands of years - seems unlikely,
if not impossible.
The government has been drilling a test hole since 2000 in central
Japan to monitor impact from underground water and conduct other
studies needed to develop a potential disposal facility.
However, no municipality in Japan has been willing to accept a
long-term disposal site.
"There is too much risk to keep highly radioactive waste 300 meters
underground anywhere in Japan for thousands or tens of thousands of
years," said Takatoshi Imada, a professor at Tokyo Technical
University's Decision Science and Technology Department.
The Japan Times: Monday, Jan. 7, 2013
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