Originally published on July 21, 2019.
This article republishes a chapter first issued on August 6, 2018, discussing Japan’s nuclear policy, the nuclear fuel cycle, the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, plutonium holdings, the Japan-U.S. nuclear agreement, and remarks by an NHK commentator.
It warns that the aim of anti-nuclear information is to force the reprocessing plant into abandonment, collapse the nuclear fuel cycle, and bury Japan’s entire nuclear power policy.

2019-07-21
The aim of such information is to force the reprocessing plant into abandonment, collapse the nuclear fuel cycle, and bury Japan’s entire nuclear power policy.
This is a chapter I published on August 6, 2018, titled, “NHK commentator Noriyuki Mizuno went so far as to criticize Japan by saying that China and North Korea had named Japan and pointed out the possibility of nuclear development” (August 1, “Jiron Koron”).
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
Our country’s nuclear power policy is literally about to be destroyed from its very foundation.
Japan imports uranium for nuclear power plant fuel from the United States and elsewhere, and has processed uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors to extract plutonium.
The nuclear fuel cycle is the system in which this plutonium is reused in the prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju in Fukui Prefecture or in ordinary light-water reactors through pluthermal use, and Japan’s nuclear power policy is built upon this basic foundation.
However, Monju was decided to be decommissioned.
To maintain the nuclear fuel cycle, there is no choice but pluthermal use.
Among the nuclear power plants that have restarted, only four are capable of pluthermal use.
The annual consumption of one reactor is 0.4 tons of plutonium.
If the reprocessing plant in Rokkasho Village, Aomori Prefecture, which is expected to be completed in three years, begins operation, eight tons of plutonium will be extracted annually through the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
Therefore, in order to fulfill the Atomic Energy Commission’s “pledge” to reduce the amount of plutonium held, arguments have arisen that spent nuclear fuel should not be reprocessed, or that reprocessing should be restricted.
The policy of the Atomic Energy Commission can be read as one that would sever Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle and lead the nuclear power industry toward its end.
Does this not overlap perfectly with the scheme of Naoto Kan?
It makes the public pay the enormous burden of renewable energy, fails in nuclear power policy, relies excessively on fossil fuels such as coal, and turns Japan into a major CO2-emitting country.
Why is our country being driven down such a foolish path?
In the course of the automatic extension of the Japan-U.S. Nuclear Agreement, information flew about from the Japanese side and even from the American side, such as “Japan’s plutonium holdings of 47 tons,” “equivalent to about 6,000 atomic bombs,” and “risk of nuclear proliferation.”
But these are not accurate.
The 47 tons of plutonium held by Japan are reactor-grade plutonium, and differ in composition from weapons-grade plutonium used for nuclear weapons, with markedly low purity.
Of Japan’s plutonium, about 36 tons were reprocessed under commission in Britain and France and are stored by those two countries.
Furthermore, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, are stationed permanently at the reprocessing plant in Rokkasho Village, and Japan is under strict control.
It is scientifically and physically impossible for Japan to build an atomic bomb.
There is no problem whatsoever with Japan’s possession of plutonium.
The only way to solve the problem is to operate the reprocessing plant and complete the nuclear fuel cycle.
Nevertheless, Japan as a whole shrank before inaccurate information, or information that contained a specific purpose.
As soon as the Japan-U.S. Nuclear Agreement was automatically extended, the media immediately reported “concerns of the international community.”
NHK commentator Noriyuki Mizuno went so far as to criticize Japan by saying that China and North Korea had named Japan and pointed out the possibility of nuclear development (August 1, “Jiron Koron”).
The aim of such information is to force the reprocessing plant into abandonment, collapse the nuclear fuel cycle, and bury Japan’s entire nuclear power policy.
The Abe administration, which bears responsibility for Japan’s energy policy, should recognize that Japan’s future is facing a crisis because of anti-nuclear information, and should work to rebuild energy policy.