EDWARDS: Stockpiling Plutonium in Japan

[Oscar]

EDWARDS: Stockpiling Plutonium in Japan

Background: April 19 2014

The dangers of reprocessing civilian nuclear fuel are coming home to roost … in Japan.

Those who make a habit of denying or minimizing the military threat associated with reactor-grade plutonium are helping to steer the world into a quagmire.

If stockpiles of separated plutonium are regarded as normal and acceptable, it will be impossible to ever achieve the level of trust needed for the international abolition of nuclear weapons – an objective to which those promoting civilian reprocessing apparently attach little or no importance.

QUOTATIONS FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES:

(1) US Department of Energy:
"Reactor-grade plutonium is weapons-usable, whether by unsophisticated proliferators or by advanced nuclear weapon states.... Advanced nuclear weapon states such as the United States and Russia, using modern designs, could produce weapons from reactor-grade plutonium having reliable explosive yields, weight, and other characteristics generally comparable to those of weapons made from weapons-grade plutonium." US DOE, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment of Weapons-Usable Fissile Material Storage and Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives, pp. 37-39


(2) Sandia National Laboratories:
"The single summary statement about the utility of plutonium ... in nuclear explosive devices is: 'All plutonium is good plutonium; some is better than other.' ... All plutonium that could be stolen or recovered ... [is] readily weapons usable.... Although weaponsgrade plutonium is preferable for the development and fabrication of nuclear weapons and nuclear explosive devices, reactor grade plutonium can be used." Sandia National Laboratories, Proliferation Vulnerability Red Team Report, SAND 97-8203.


(3) US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
"It was too long before we perceived the dangerous implications of ... national stockpiling of plutonium extracted from spent reactor fuel. ... In assessing the dangers associated with possible misuse of plutonium or highly enriched uranium, we were influenced in the early days by the assumption that nuclear weapons and development required long and costly programs -- and that even separated plutonium or highly enriched uranium could not easily or rapidly be turned into military explosives.

“This led to other careless assumptions: for example, that the technique of reactor safeguarding ... would be adequate to provide the vital early warning of illicit attempts to divert separated plutonium, when it eventually began to accumulate in stockpiles. ... These miscalculations ... are the key to difficulties we are now experiencing in curbing further proliferation. . . . In following this course we have finally arrived at a situation in which a country can come arbitrarily close to going nuclear [ i.e. developing nuclear weapons ] with our materials without violating any agreements.

“These are the consequences of taking for granted the future utilization of plutonium and regarding reprocessing as a perfectly legitimate commercial activity, and also of taking for granted the efficacy of 'safeguarding'. While it is a cliché ... that diversion cannot be prevented by inspection safeguards, there is nevertheless a general human tendency to relax and assume protection once they are in place. Calling the inspections 'safeguards' contributes to this illusion." - Victor Gilinsky, Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Agency, "Plutonium, Proliferation and Policy", Technoogy Review, February 1977.


Nuclear Energy proponents work hard to convey the impression that reactor-grade plutonium is not a big worry, that the problem is quite manageable -- with occasional inspections and signed safeguards agreements -- leading government leaders to the dangerous mind-set that only "weapons-grade" plutonium has to be sequestered and made unavailable. Thus the proposed "Fissile Materials Cut-Off Treaty" says NOTHING about reactor-grade plutonium.

Gordon Edwards, President
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
www.ccnr.org

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Ambiguities of Japan's Nuclear Policy

[ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/opini ... .html?_r=0 ]

Nohiro Kato, New York Times, APRIL 13, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/m59vcmt

TOKYO — When Yasunari Kawabata became the first Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference ... classifier ] for Literature in 1968, he gave a speech called “Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself” [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/inte ... ne=nyt-geo ] that presented a benignly aesthetic portrait of the so-called Japanese spirit larded with references to classical poetry, the tea ceremony and ikebana. When Kenzabur Oe received the prize in 1994, he titled his lecture, “Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself,” and offered a critical take on the country’s ambiguities, starting its being part of Asia and simultaneously aligned with the West.

I was reminded of the contrast between Japan the Beautiful and Japan the Ambiguous late last month when, during the third Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague, the Japanese government announced that it would hand over to the United States more than 700 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium and a vast supply of highly enriched uranium. It struck me then that the ambiguities of Japan’s policy on nuclear weapons [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/scie ... classifier ] might be coming up against the nationalist agenda of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also the author of “Towards a Beautiful Country: My Vision for Japan.” [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference ... ne=nyt-per ]

Although Japan does not have nuclear weapons, it has a nuclear weapons policy. The strategy was set out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1969 in an internal document whose existence was kept secret until the daily Mainichi Shimbun published it in 1994. That paper states that “for the time being we will maintain the policy of not possessing nuclear weapons” but also “keep the economic and technical potential for the production of nuclear weapons, while seeing to it that Japan will not be interfered with in this regard.” Known as “technological deterrence,” this posture is inherently ambiguous, and has been made more so still by the ministry’s insistence that the document was a research paper rather than a statement of policy.

In a 2000 essay about the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the disarmament advocate Jonathan Schell drew a distinction between capacity and intention in describing the range of positions states may adopt on nuclear weapons. At the time, Sweden had the capacity to produce such weapons but not the intention; Libya had the intention but not the capacity. Japan, by contrast, stands out as the only nation that has both the capacity and the intention to produce nuclear weapons but does not act on its intention. It has pioneered a type of nuclear deterrence that relies not on any overt threat, but on the mere suggestion of a latent possibility.

Despite all the evidence to this effect, the Japanese government has continued to deny that it has pursued technological deterrence because acknowledging this would both contravene the spirit of the N.P.T. and anger the Japanese people, who remain strongly opposed to nuclear weapons. Thus Japan has managed to signal to other countries that it could produce nuclear weapons, and that it would if it had to, while simultaneously making it hard for anyone, either at home or abroad, to object.

Norihiro Kato is a literary scholar and a professor at Waseda University. This article was translated by Michael Emmerich from the Japanese.

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[ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/opini ... .html?_r=0 ]

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Japan Pushes Plan to Stockpile Plutonium, Despite Proliferation Risks

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/world ... risks.html ]

By Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times, APRIL 9, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/kral4uz

TOKYO — Just weeks after Japan agreed to give up a cache of weapons-grade plutonium, the country is set to push ahead with a program that would produce new stockpiles of the material, creating a proliferation risk for decades to come.

Though that additional plutonium would not be the grade that is most desirable for bombs, and is therefore less of a threat, it could — in knowledgeable hands and with some work and time — be used to make a weapon. The newly created stockpiles would add to tons of other plutonium already being stored in Japan.

“The government made a big deal out of returning several hundred kilograms of plutonium, but it brushes over the fact that Japan has so much more,” said Sumio Mabuchi, an opposition lawmaker who served as adviser to the government in the early days of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. “It’s hypocritical.”

Plutonium staying in Japan would be used for a nuclear recycling program that has become one of the most contentious parts of the nation’s first comprehensive energy plan since the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The plan is expected to be approved by the cabinet as early as Friday.

The recycling program, which seeks to separate plutonium from used nuclear fuel so it can be reused to power reactors, is seen by supporters as a way of ensuring resource-poor Japan more energy independence.

The program has helped delay the energy plan’s approval, with even some members of the governing party worried by its cost and by criticism from proliferation experts at home and abroad.

Those experts fear the plutonium produced by recycling would create an inviting target for terrorists to steal or attack, and American officials have been quietly pressing Japan not to build up larger stocks of the material. The plutonium is far easier to use in weapons than the uranium that has been used to power most of Japan’s nuclear reactors.

For the many Japanese frightened of atomic power after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the government’s continued push for recycling after years of missteps is a worrisome sign that the government plans a robust nuclear energy program in the future despite promises to eventually reduce the nation’s use of atomic power. (The country’s functioning nuclear reactors have been idled while they undergo more stringent safety checks introduced after the accident.)

The plans also mean Japan is committed to using a mixed plutonium-uranium fuel for reactors that is considered somewhat more dangerous than uranium fuel if there is an accident. The mixture, called mixed oxide fuel, is necessary because plutonium produced by recycling cannot be used alone in the reactors.

Japan’s intent to grow its plutonium inventory is also becoming a new irritant in Tokyo’s relations with its Asian neighbors, threatening to further destabilize a region already mired in disputes over territory and wartime history. This month, China accused Japan of stockpiling plutonium and uranium “far exceeding its normal needs.” The implication is that Japan wants to retain the plutonium in case it decided to pursue its own nuclear weapons program.

For Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other proponents of recycling, the risks are outweighed by the benefit of more energy independence — a goal of Japanese leaders for decades. While uranium remains widely available, and cheap, the Abe administration says Japan’s nuclear program should not be vulnerable to disruptions of supply or a possible rise in costs.

Japan must continue with the nuclear fuel cycle,” said Kazuo Ishikawa, a former Trade Ministry official who worked on energy policy. “Japan’s energy security depends on it.”

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