Two British ships yesterday arrived in eastern Japan to transport a shipment of plutonium — enough to make dozens of atomic bombs — to the US for storage under a bilateral agreement.
The ships arrived at the coastal village of Tokai, northeast of Tokyo, home to the nation’s main nuclear research facility, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, according to Kyodo news agency and citizens’ groups. It was to take several hours to load the plutonium-filled casks onto the ships, both fitted with naval guns and other protection.
The Pacific Egret and Pacific Heron, both operated by Pacific Nuclear Transport, are to take the 331kg of plutonium to the Savannah River Site, a US government facility in South Carolina, under a pledge made by Japan in 2014. The plutonium, mostly from the US, and some from France originally, had been used for research purposes.
Photo: AP
Japanese officials refused to confirm details, citing security reasons.
Japan’s stockpile and its fuel-reprocessing ambitions to use plutonium as fuel for power generation have been a source of international security concerns.
Japan has accumulated a massive stockpile of plutonium — 11 metric tonnes in Japan and another 36 tonnes that have been reprocessed in Britain and France, and are waiting to be returned to Japan — enough to make nearly 6,000 atomic bombs.
The latest shipment comes just ahead of a nuclear security summit in Washington later this month and is seen as a step to showcase both nations’ nuclear non-proliferation efforts.
Washington has increasingly voiced concerns about the nuclear spent-fuel-reprocessing plans by Japan and China to produce plutonium for energy generation, a technology South Korea also wants to acquire, saying they pose security and proliferation risks.
Japan began building a major reprocessing plant with French state-owned company Areva in the early 1990s. The trouble-plagued project has been delayed ever since, and in November last year, its opening was postponed until 2018 to allow for more safety upgrades and inspections.
Experts say launching the Rokkasho reprocessing plant would not ease the situation, because Japan has little hope of achieving a spent fuel recycling program.
Japan’s plutonium-burning fast breeder reactor Monju, suspended for more than 20 years, is now on the verge of being closed due to poor safety records and technical problems, while optional plans to burn uranium-plutonium mixtures of mixed-oxide fuel in conventional reactors have been delayed since the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011. Only two of Japan’s 43 workable reactors are
currently online.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
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