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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Another glossy new nuclear film advertisement – “The New Fire”

Film review: ‘The New Fire’ and the old Gen IV rhetoric Author: Jim Green ‒ Nuclear Monitor editor NM866.4751, October 2018 The New Fire is a pro-nuclear propaganda film directed and produced by musician and film-maker David Schumacher.It’s similar in some respects to the 2013 film Pandora’s Promise.1,2 The New Fire premiere was held in October 2017 and it can be streamed online from 18 October 2018…..

The film includes interviews with around 30 people (an overwhelming majority of them male) interspersed with footage of interviewees walking into buildings, and interviewees smiling. The musical underlay is a tedious drone ‒ a disappointment given Schumacher’s musical background……..Interviewees are mostly aging but the film’s main message is that young entrepreneurs may save the planet and its inhabitants with their Generation IV reactor projects……..

These climate heroes are contrasted with anti-nuclear environmentalists. One interviewee says that “people of our generation are the first ones that have the opportunity to look at nuclear power without all the emotional baggage that previous generations have felt…..

Another interviewee attributes opposition to nuclear power to an “irrational fear of the unknown” (which surely poses a problem for the exotic Generation IV concepts promoted in the film) and another says that “once people sort of understand what’s going on withnuclear, they are much more open to it”.

The film trots out the usual anti-renewables tropes and falsehoods: 100% renewables is “just a fantasy”, renewables can contribute up to 20% of power supply and the remainder must be baseload: fossil fuels or nuclear power………

Accidents such as those at Fukushima and Chernobyl get in the news because they are “so unusual” according to interviewee Ken Caldeira. And they get in the news, he might have added, because of the estimated death tolls (in the thousands for Fukushima5, ranging to tens of thousands for Chernobyl6), the costs (around US$700 billion for Chernobyl7, and US$192 billion (and counting) for Fukushima8), the evacuation of 160,000 people after the Fukushima disaster and the permanent relocation of over 350,000 people after the Chernobyl disaster…….

Transatomic Power’s molten salt reactor concept The film spends most of its time promoting Generation IV reactor projects including Transatomic Power’s molten salt reactor (MSR) concept. [Ed note. recently failed and abandoned] .

Scott Nolan from venture capital firm Founders Fund says that Transatomic satisfies his four concerns about nuclear power: safety, waste, cost, proliferation. And he’s right ‒ Transatomic’s MSRs are faultless on all four counts, because they don’t exist. It’s doubtful whether they would satisfy any of the four criteria if they did actually exist……. https://nuclear-news.net/2018/10/01/another-nuclear-film-advertisement-the-new-fire/

EVENTS

November-December 2018 International Uranium Film Festival – U.S. Southwest tour

November 29th and 30th and December 1st, Navajo Nation Museum, Hwy 264 & Post Office Loop, Window Rock, Navajo Nation, AZ

December 2nd, Flagstaff, AZ

December 6th, Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave, Albuquerque, NM

December 7th, Grants, NM

December 9th, Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe, NM

PETITIONS

Tell Congress: Stop Trump from ordering a nuclear first strike without a Congressional declaration of war.

PREVENT UNNECESSARY RADIOACTIVE RISKS ACROSS THE USA NATION

Protect Idaho’s water. Stop nuclear waste.

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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope