Plutonium

Some readers appear to wonder why I recently write only about nuclear power generation in this column. I do so because I believe that it is a crucial issue that will determine the fate of Japan as well as the whole world.

Nuclear fuel recycling refers to a process of treating spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power stations with chemicals and extracting reusable uranium and plutonium from it. This project has so far been unsuccessful and there are no prospects that the project will work. It was only natural that the government regulator and the power supplier were negotiating a withdrawal from the project.

The U.K. faced a major challenge in dealing with a massive amount of plutonium, which needs to be stored safely. The storage of plutonium costs a huge amount of money, but the U.K. can no longer afford to pay for this. The U.K. needs to prevent such a substance from falling into the hands of terrorists. The country has consequently decided to bury part of its plutonium in an underground repository that is scheduled to begin operations in 2040.

Even if the U.K. says it will bury only "part" of its surplus plutonium, its amount is enough to produce hundreds of atomic bombs. The amount of surplus plutonium that needs to be buried could increase as there is no prospect that the U.K. will be successful in developing technology to use plutonium-uranium MOX fuel in thermal reactors.

Moreover, the U.K. will abandon its project to reprocess spent nuclear fuel over the next decade. Behind the decision is the growing awareness that plutonium offers no positives, while also being a terrible nuisance. This is the essence of the story written by Haruyuki Aikawa, a Mainichi correspondent in London.