Japan-U.S. nuclear fuel reprocessing pact automatically renews after 30-year deadline passes

The nuclear pact between Japan and the United States that allows Japan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and enrich uranium, automatically renewed Wednesday, after Tokyo made no move to end it by Tuesday, the deadline to do so.

The bilateral nuclear agreement, which entered into force in July 1988, had authorized Japan to establish a nuclear fuel recycling system over 30 years to July 2018.

As neither side has sought to review the pact it will remain in force indefinitely, but can be terminated six months after either party notifies the other. Such a notification can be made at any time.

The pact is “part of the foundation of our country’s use of nuclear power” and also “crucial to Japan-U.S. relations,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference Tuesday.

Under Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling system, spent fuel from nuclear reactors is reprocessed to extract uranium and plutonium. These materials are then recycled into fuel called mixed oxide, or MOX, for use in fast-breeder reactors or conventional nuclear reactors.

But uncertainties over the country’s reprocessing program have grown after most nuclear plants in Japan suspended operations amid safety concerns following the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. In December 2016 the government decided to decommission the trouble-prone Monju fast-breeder reactor at the core of the fuel cycle policy.

The U.S. government does not see any immediate need to review the pact partly because of tensions in East Asia, where North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and China is expanding its military, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

Japan possesses 47 tons of plutonium within and outside the country. If it is unable to reduce its stockpile, that may spark concerns in the United States and calls for reviewing the pact may increase.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/17/national/japan-u-s-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-pact-automatically-renews-30-year-deadline-passes/#.Wl9t5PaDPrc

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Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

nuclear-news

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