Call to Action
Stop Japan’s Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant
Action Requested: Sending letter to the Japanese Embassy in your country urging Japan not to start the Rokkasho reprocessing plant.
Please send a copy of the letter to GENSUIKIN: no-pu@gensuikin.org
DEADLINE: Monday, 5 August (your time)
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Japan!
July 12, 2013
We will be commemorating the bombing of Nagasaki in about a month. Sixty-eight years ago on August 9, an atomic bomb containing about 6kg of plutonium destroyed the city of Nagasaki in an instant.
Next year, Japan intends to start the commercial operation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, the only industrial-scale reprocessing plant in a non-nuclear weapons state, to separate plutonium from fuel used in nuclear power plants at a rate of 8 tons per year, equivalent to 1,000 bombs using the IAEA formula of 8kg per bomb.
Originally, Japan intended to use separated plutonium to fuel fast breeder reactors (FBRs), which were supposed to produce more plutonium than they consumed, guaranteeing a semi eternal energy source. As in other countries, this program stalled, however. So Japan launched an uneconomical program to consume its accumulating plutonium in light water reactors. This also stalled. As result Japan has accumulated about 44 tons of plutonium, equivalent to more than 5,000 bombs: 34 tons in Europe, from reprocessing Japan’s spent fuel in the UK and France, and 10 tons in Japan.
Due to the Fukushima accident we have only two of 50 reactors operating. The number and the timing the reactors to be restarted is uncertain and the prospect of being able to consume a significant amount of the existing plutonium in reactors anytime soon is dim. Applications for review for restart of 10 reactors under the new safety rules were just submitted July 8.
The government still wants to start operation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. Further accumulation of nuclear-weapon-usable material is a concern for the international society and for Japan’s neighbors, who wonder about its intentions.
Separated plutonium is also a security risk. And if other countries follow Japan’s example, it would increase proliferation risks.
Please help us to stop Japan from further separating nuclear weapon usable material by doing the following:
Send a message/letter by fax or otherwise to the Japanese Embassy in your country by August 9 urging Japan not to start the Rokkasho reprocessing plant and send a copy of the message/letter that you have sent or intend to send to the following e-mail address by 5 August
no-pu@gensuikin.org
*List of Japanese Embassies
http://www.mofa.go.jp/about/emb_cons/mofaserv.html
We will deliver them to the government of Japan on August 9. We also will release them to the media.
If your group could organize an action or produce a paper/OP-ED on the situation, please let us know. Please also help us circulate this request.
Thank you very much in advance.
NO MORE HIROSHIMAs! NO MORE NAGASAKIs! NO MORE PLUTONIUM! Sincerely yours,
Yasunari Fujimoto
Secretary General,
Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs (GENSUIKIN)
Cf.
Japan’s Nuclear Mistake
By FRANK N. VON HIPPEL and MASAFUMI TAKUBO
Published: November 28, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/opinion/japans-nuclear-mistake.html?_ r=0
Japan: Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty
A Call on Japan to Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty by Indefinitely Postponing Operation of the Rokkasho Spent Fuel Reprocessing Plant (May 5, 2005) http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/nuclear_prolifer ation_and_terrorism/japan-strengthen-the.html
An appeal to Japan for leadership toward strengthening of the non-proliferation regime
Call for an indefinite postponement of the operation of the Rokkasho plutonium reprocessing plant? (May 24, 2005) http://kakujoho.net/e/0524.html
Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs (GENSUIKIN)
1F RENGO-kaikan, 3-2-11 Kanda-Surugadai, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0062, Japan
phone: +81-3-5289-8224 fax: +81-3-5289-8223
