nuclear-news

France supplies dangerous plutonium fuel to Japanese nuclear reactor

Controversial MOX fuel in use at Japanese reactor NTI Global Security NewsWire Nov. 5, 2009

A Japanese nuclear power reactor today began using French-made mixed-oxide fuel, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 17).

The material was shipped in May and is being employed at a plant in Japan’s western Saga prefecture. Power generation using the fuel mixed from plutonium and reprocessed uranium is expected to begin Monday.

MOX use has been hotly protested by the environmental organization Greenpeace, which argues the fuel poses a nuclear proliferation threat because its plutonium component could be more simply withdrawn and put to use in a weapon than the plutonium used in traditional nuclear fuel.

Opponents also assert that the fuel could be subject to terrorist strikes or accidents while being transported across the globe (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Nov. 5). http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20091105_7651.php

November 6, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety | antinuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive