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Rokkasho plant too dangerous, costly: expert | The Japan Times Online

Rokkasho plant too dangerous, costly: expert
The Japan Times Nov. 27, 2008  By ERIKO ARITA Japan’s plan to reprocess and recycle spent nuclear fuel in a reprocessing plant in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, will be a huge waste of electricity users’ money and an environmental threat, according to a French atomic power expert……………………….

The fast-breeder reactors in France had been planning to use plutonium separated from nuclear waste. But because the plan failed, France has 55 tons of weapons-grade plutonium stock, Schneider said.

Japan had 31.2 tons of plutonium as of the end of last year, the majority of which has been stored in reprocessing plants in France and the U.K., according to the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

“Plutonium separation also means the largest radioactive emissions in the overall nuclear fuel chain and has significant contribution to the collective global dose (of radiation),” Schneider said.

In fact, reprocessing plants in France and the U.K. have been disposing of radioactive emissions into the ocean. One of the radioactive materials, iodine 129, has been found on the northern Norwegian coast and the Baltic Sea, according to Riso National Laboratory in Denmark.

Some 4 tons of iodine 129 had been discharged by the reprocessing plants by 2004 and the concentration of iodine 129 in the Baltic Sea in 2000 was 1,000 times higher than before nuclear energy existed………….

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, a major investor in JNFL, said in 2003 it would cost ¥11 trillion to construct, operate and dismantle the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. The cost is to be paid for by future electricity customers.

Schneider said the public will have to shoulder the huge cost unless the reprocessing plant is suspended.

“It’s up to the decision of Japanese people to say (Japan should) stop (the reprocessing) or we pay for it,” Schneider said. “But the problem is there is no interaction between people who pay for it and people who spend the money.”………………………..

“The Japanese nuclear industry hasn’t been even able to operate its (existing) nuclear reactors,” Schneider said. The energy plan is “some kind of fantasy.”

Schneider said earthquakes are the major factor that make nuclear power an unreliable energy source in Japan.

In July 2007, a fire broke out and water containing radioactive material leaked at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit Niigata Prefecture. The nuclear plant, which has seven reactors and is the world’s largest in terms of electrical output, is still out of commission.

“The situation at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa shows how difficult it is to operate nuclear reactors in Japan because of the earthquake risk,” Schneider said.

Rokkasho plant too dangerous, costly: expert | The Japan Times Online

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November 27, 2008 - Posted by | Uncategorized

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