International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant

Masa Takubo

The Rokkasho reprocessing plant in the Aomori prefecture, at the northern tip of the main island of Japan, is planned to start plutonium separation testing in December this year (2005). Unlike the uranium testing going on right now, some 400 tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants are to be processed in this so-called “active testing” to separate some 4 tons of plutonium, enough to make 500 Nagasaki-type bombs, before the start up of the plant in May 2007. Thus the “testing” in reality means the start of operation of the plant.

If started, the Rokkasho plant would become the first commercial-scale reprocessing plant in a non-nuclear-weapon state. The plant’s full annual capacity, to be reached in 2009, is 800 tons of spent fuel. This would mean annual production of eight tons of plutonium, enough to make 1000 Nagasaki-type bombs. The plant is the only one in the world to go into operation in the near future. The start of the operation of the plant, which the Japanese government itself admits is uneconomical, would make it impossible to prevent other countries with the intention of producing nuclear weapons from using it as an excuse to construct similar facilities.

So the fate of the plant could decide the fate of the proposal made by IAEA Secretary General ElBaradei, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, for a five to ten year moratorium of the construction of new uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities. A regime where only nuclear weapons states and Japan could have reprocessing plants would not be possible to maintain. Japan could not be the only honorary member of the nuclear club.

The Japanese government maintains it is necessary to reprocess spent fuel to utilize the scarce uranium resources to the fullest extent. The ratio of U-235, which can be “burnt” easily, in natural uranium is only 0.7%. The rest is mostly U-238. In ordinary light water reactors uranium enriched to 3-5% U-235 is used. (For bombs uranium is enriched to about 90% U-235.) During operation, a part of the U-238 turns into plutonium. In reprocessing, the spent fuel is dissolved in nitrate solution to separate the plutonium (and if desired also the uranium that was not burnt up) from the highly radioactive fission products. The separated plutonium could be used to make fuel for breeder and light water reactors or to make bombs. The breeder reactor program has been stalled since the sodium fire accident in the Monju prototype breeder reactor in 1995. The plan now is to mix plutonium with uranium to make MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel for light water reactors. The government admits that the uranium thus saved amount only to 10-20%, and that it would come at a very high cost. Even if plutonium is given for free, it is cheaper to use fuel made of enriched uranium at market price because the high radioactivity of plutonium makes the fuel production process very expensive.

The government announced in 1997 that it would start consuming plutonium as MOX fuel in 16-18 reactors by 2010. But this plan also has faced delays due to the disclosure of fabrication of quality control data by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) for the MOX fuel to be used by the Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) in 1999, the cover-up of troubles of reactors by the Tokyo Electric Power Company in 2002, an accident at a KEPCO reactor, etc. The end result is the accumulation of more than 43 tons of plutonium possessed by Japan by the end of 2004: 37.4 tons abroad (from contracted reprocessing in UK and France) and 5.7 tons in Japan.

Thus there is no rational need for the hurried start-up of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant from the point of view of saving uranium resources. To save uranium, it is better to store spent fuel for future use in breeder reactors so that more plutonium would be produced rather than separating plutonium now and then consuming it in light water reactors in the form of MOX fuel. Whether the breeder reactor idea is acceptable from the point of view of proliferation – or if it works at all is a separate issue.

The real reason for the urgency of the start-up of the plant is that the nuclear power plants around the country are running out of storage space for the spent fuel. As of the end of March 2004, the total amount of spent fuel stored at all power plants was around 11,000 tons. The total storage capacity, mostly in pools, is around 17,000 tons. In several years, there will be power plants with their storage pool filled up. Thus, the storage pool made next to the Rokkasho reprocessing plant is counted on. The capacity of this pool is 3,000 tons. The total amount received at the pool as of the end of March 2005 is around 1,300 tons. This pool will also be filled up in several years. Thus the idea is to make more space in the pool by sending spent fuel from there to the reprocessing plant (to be turned into different forms of waste to be stored at the same site). However, the amount of the spent fuel from the 53 reactors around the country every year is about 1,000 tons and is expected to reach 1,100 tons. The plant can process only 800 tons a year even at its full capacity as seen above. Therefore, the only way to keep operating the nuclear power plants is to have “interim storage” either onsite or offsite. In fact there is a plan now to build an interim dry storage site (for about 5,000 tons) at Mutsu city in the same prefecture of Aomori for spent fuel of the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japan Atomic Power Company. The government made a decision in 1997 to have an interim storage capacity by 2010. There is an argument that if the interim storage is to be considered at all, one could promote it to an extent that there would be no need to operate the reprocessing plant at all.

Although the movement against the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Japan has mostly been from the environmental and safety point of view, there is a growing criticism against the plant from the proliferation point of view. Control of the spread of reprocessing and uranium enrichment technology was a major issue at the Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May this year [2005] with the suspected nuclear developments by North Korea and Iran, the emergence of a nuclear black market, and with the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US as a backdrop. The possibilities of countries with uranium enrichment and reprocessing plants going nuclear clandestinely while remaining in the NPT, then leaving the NPT and going nuclear after having acquired nuclear technologies and materials under the disguise of civil programs, terrorists stealing uranium and plutonium produced in these facilities to make nuclear weapons, to sell these to a third country are all feared.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on the first day of the Review Conference, “you must come to grips with the Janus-like character of nuclear energy. The regime will not be sustainable if scores more States develop the most sensitive phases of the fuel cycle and are equipped with the technology to produce nuclear weapons on short notice – and, of course, each individual State which does this will only leave others to feel that they must do the same. This would increase all the risks – of nuclear accident, of trafficking, of terrorist use, and of use by states themselves.”

The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a statement on May 5, 2005, to coincide with the beginning of the NPT Review Conference which called on Japan to indefinitely postpone the operation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. The UCS call was signed by 27 US experts including four Nobel laureates and former Secretary of Defense William Perry (former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara signed the call later, bringing the number of signatures to 28).

On May 24, 2005, as the NPT Review Conference drew to a close, the Japanese non-governmental organization Peace Boat released a statement titled, “An Appeal to Japan for Leadership Toward Strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime. Call for an Indefinite Postponement of the Operation of the Rokkasho Plutonium Reprocessing Plant”. Some 180 people, including leaders of peace organizations around the world, signed the appeal in response to a call by representatives of Peace Depot and Peace Boat from Japan and Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and the Arms Control Association from the United States. Late Sir Joseph Rotblat, emeritus president of the Pugwash Conferences, informed about the appeal later, agreed to sign. It has become his will in a way.

The Japanese government should listen to these voices and agree to “lead the world toward the disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons” by taking “the courageous decision to indefinitely postpone the operation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant.”

At the 2006 NPT Review Conference in New York, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued the following statement on Rokkasho.