Japan must try a bit harder

March 25, 2014

EDITORIAL: Japan needs to do more to reduce its stockpile of nuclear materials

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201403250036 

How should the world respond to the potential security threat of nuclear attacks by terrorist groups?

The Nuclear Security Summit that got under way March 24 in The Hague is wrestling with how to reduce the number of locations across the globe that store nuclear materials capable of being used to make atomic and hydrogen bombs. At the outset of the two-day summit, Japan announced its intention to turn over a large cache of its highly enriched uranium and plutonium to the United States. The stockpile is kept at a research facility run by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Japan had claimed that the nuclear materials, including weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, are needed for research on nuclear reactors. Japan needs to be at the forefront of efforts to raise international awareness of the urgent need to deal with the threat of nuclear terrorism. Thus, the Japanese government needs to do more to curtail its stockpile of nuclear materials.

During the Cold War era, both the United States and the Soviet Union provided nuclear materials to their respective allies and satellite states in an apparent move symbolizing the solidarity of their blocs. Many of these materials remain spread across numerable sites around the world.

The Obama administration has been working hard to collect nuclear materials since it announced an ambitious agenda to seek “a world without nuclear weapons” in 2009. More than 10 countries and regions, including Ukraine, Mexico and Taiwan, have done away with their weapons-grade nuclear materials.

There has not been a significant reduction in the nuclear arsenals of major nuclear powers, however. But the removal of surplus fissile materials at least represents noticeable, if not dramatic, progress.

As the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs, Japan should lead the international efforts to lessen the nuclear risks. But there are still many problems.

In 2012, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an international nongovernmental organization, assessed the risks of nuclear terrorism for 32 countries possessing 1 kilogram or more of weapons-grade nuclear materials. Japan was ranked 23rd in the NTI Nuclear Materials Security Index, the lowest score among the seven leading industrial countries.

Japan’s standing in the index rose to 13th among 25 countries this year thanks to the creation of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, an independent nuclear safety watchdog, and the measures to prevent nuclear terrorism taken under the new, tougher safety standards for nuclear facilities. But Japan’s score for “quantities of nuclear materials” was zero--meaning there is no progress toward a major reduction--as it was in 2012.

That’s because Japan has stored more than 40 tons of plutonium for many years without offering a clear plan to use the material. Plutonium is extracted from spent nuclear fuel from Japanese nuclear power plants. The process is done at overseas facilities and the material is sent back to Japan in the form of mixed-oxide fuel. The transportation of the MOX fuel is deemed to be fraught with serious risks.

Under its agreement with the United States, Japan has been allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel for extracting plutonium as an exceptional case. But the disaster that unfolded at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011 has effectively eliminated the possibility of burning MOX fuel at reactors as a way to reduce the amount of plutonium.

Given this situation, Japan would be viewed with a very critical eye by the international community if it starts full-scale operations of its reprocessing plant and increases its stockpile of plutonium further.

The fact that Japan is stuck with a massive surplus of fissile material while Iran and other countries with new nuclear programs are not allowed to do so inevitably undermines the international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Japan should pull the plug on its program to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. It should propose realistic measures to reduce its stockpiles, such as the disposal of plutonium in responsible and trustworthy countries.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 25