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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Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist

The climate change threat to nuclear power

By Natalie Kopytko “…………The final problem is droughts, which climate models predict will become longer and larger. Legal battles have already been fought in the US over scarce water resources in regions with nuclear power plants, including the Catawba river basin in the Carolinas and the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint river basin in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. These battles show us that adapting our systems – including nuclear power – to a reduced supply of water will not be easy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency advises the nuclear industry to build power plants to last for 100 years. Given that climate models don’t agree on what to expect within this time period, it is not at all clear how this can be achieved.

New reactors could use dry or hybrid systems with lower water requirements, but the costs of running these systems are likely to be prohibitive. Considering nuclear power plants already have problems with construction cost overruns, any additional costs are likely to meet resistance.

What is to be done? Most forms of energy generation are vulnerable in some way to the effects of climate change, and the fact that nuclear power is among them is yet another argument against a wholesale shift towards this source of energy.

The bottom line is that if nuclear power is to be used to mitigate the effects of climate change, it must also be capable of adapting to them. There are serious doubts that it can. more https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028138-200-the-climate-change-threat-to-nuclear-power/

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