Japan reports possessing 30 tons of plutonium

[kristopher]

Japan reports possessing 30 tons of plutonium
BY TATSUYUKI KOBORI STAFF WRITER

2011/09/22

The amount of fissile plutonium possessed by Japan both at home and abroad as of the end of 2010 was about 30 tons, according to a Cabinet Office report submitted to the Japan Atomic Energy Commission on Sept. 20.

The report will also be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Of the 30 tons, about 6.7 tons are being kept in Japan and about 23.3 tons are in Britain and France, the government said.

Burning nuclear fuel in reactors produces plutonium, which has been mainly treated at reprocessing facilities overseas....

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201109210356.html

[htuttle]

1. Plus, there's another few hundred pounds

...burning it's way into the groundwater at Fukushima reactor #3.

[HereSince1628]

2. I hadn't thought about it but I guess that's sort of true

you can't really be said to possess a thing that you don't control.

[kristopher]

3. I don't know about that specifically, but Scotland has lethal contamination in their seabed...

Scottish nuclear fuel leak 'will never be completely cleaned up'

...Tens of thousands of radioactive fuel fragments escaped from the Dounreay plant between 1963 and 1984, polluting local beaches, the coastline and the seabed. Fishing has been banned within a two-kilometre radius of the plant since 1997.

The most radioactive of the particles are regarded by experts as potentially lethal if ingested. Similar in size to grains of sand, they contain caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, but they can also incorporate traces of plutonium-239, which has a half-life of over 24,000 years – meaning that is the time period for half of the material to break down.

The particles are milled shards from the reprocessing of irradiated uranium and plutonium fuel from two long-defunct reactors. They are thought to have drained into the sea with discharges from cooling ponds.

In 2007, Dounreay, which is now being decommissioned, pleaded guilty at Wick sheriff court to a "failure to prevent fragments of irradiated nuclear fuel being discharged into the environment". The plant's operator at the time, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, was fined £140,000....


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/21/scottish-nuclear-leak-clean-up

[binarysunrise]

4. 6.7 tons?

Were the 6.7 tons still there after the tsunami?