This section explains the long-term safety of geological disposal through historical evidence and highlights the strategic importance of the fast breeder reactor Monju, while examining why its significance was never properly conveyed to the Japanese public.

2016-03-16

Some may argue that even three thousand years is unacceptable.
However, next to Izumo Taisha stands the Shimane Prefectural Ancient Izumo History Museum, where numerous bronze bells and bronze spears from the Yayoi period, dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, discovered at nearby sites, are on display.
Even the decorative patterns on their surfaces remain intact, demonstrating that metals can be preserved underground for over two thousand years without corrosion.
Mummies found inside coffins in the pyramids of Egypt have also preserved human skin and clothing beautifully for several thousand years.
Furthermore, by burning waste in next-generation fast breeder reactors, the detoxification period said to be one hundred thousand years can be shortened to three hundred years.
At the same time, the volume of high-level radioactive waste can be reduced to one-seventh.
That is precisely why the development of “Monju” is important.
To be continued.
What Monju actually was remained completely unknown to almost all Japanese citizens, myself included.
This is because within media organizations such as Asahi, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there was no one who spoke or even understood the issue in the way Professor Narabayashi does.
Even if a few such individuals existed, within organizations whose leadership had become obsessed solely with opposing nuclear power, diverting public attention through issues such as the comfort women, and overthrowing the Abe administration to keep Asahi alive, those few sound-minded individuals had little choice but to resign and express their views only by writing books.
As a result, the reporting by media outlets such as Asahi was from the outset uniformly dismissive of Monju.
It is therefore unsurprising that the Japanese people never learned what Monju truly was.