Japan contracts for a new fast breeder reactor with Mitsubishi.

[NNadir]

The Japanese government has selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) as the core company to develop a new generation of fast breeder reactors, in an initiative promoted by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA).


Concept of commercial FBR (sodium-cooled loop type) (Image: MHI)
The government bodies involved - the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, together with the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan and the JAEA - opted to concentrate responsibility and authority for fast breeder reactor (FBR) development into one core company, possessing "technological development capabilities and tangible achievements in this area."

Unlike most of the reactors used today for nuclear power generation, FBRs make maximum use of uranium resources by generating more fuel than they consume. They do this by using fast neutrons to "burn up" uranium and plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which can be surrounded a uranium "blanket" in which slightly more plutonium is created than is used. The MOX fuel uses the plutonium recovered when spent fuel, including that from conventional light water reactors, is reprocessed.

Recycling plutonium could potentially provide a long-term stable energy supply, and the Japanese government sees the FBR as the main nuclear power generation system for the 21st century, superseding light-water reactors. Japan already has experience with fast reactors, with the Joyo prototype reactor, operating since 1977, and the Monju prototype FBR which started up in 1994. Monju has been off line since a sodium leakage in 1995 but it is slated for restart, possibly in 2008.

Japan has already completed a fuel recycling plant, and will be contracting with Russia for re-enrichment of the spent fuel. The plutonium breeding capability will allow Japan to completely consume all of the uranium it receives and will vastly increase their uranium reserves.

[Ghost Dog]

1. This also produces plutonium for nuclear weapons. n/t

[DCKit]

2. Yes, it does. However, Japan has no oil reserves as well as limited hydro or geothermal

Do you think they'd waste their plutonium on bombs? Yeah, yeah, I know their history too, but energy independence is true power and they are not stupid people. Hell, they actually value education over there in that backward country.

No, I believe they intend to remove themselves from the fray. With their existing natural resources, enough of a pool of recyclable materials and energy, they could be nearly self-sufficient. Especially with negative population growth.

The one issue I have is that it's a sodium cooled reactor. Sodium is a hella reactive element and they've already demonstrated the potential danger. Is the new design going to address those issues?

BTW, I am not pro-nuclear, just a realist. Better they do it halfway around the world before we start building them here. However, I also have some familiarity with the industry and some of the new reactor designs are far, far safer than anything ever built in the U.S..

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Japan already has enough plutonium...

...for thousands of warheads. Not really sure why a Japanese FBR would change anything...

[NNadir]

4. No, it does not.

For this statement to be true, Japan would have had to have made a nuclear weapon or to plan to make a nuclear weapon.

In any case, Japanese plutonium is reactor grade, not weapons grade. Moreover since Japan is already burning MOX, their inventory of plutonium is currently decreasing, not increasing. Reactor grade can be used to make nuclear weapons, but they are unreliable and give extremely low yields.

Japan will undoubtedly move in the future, ten or twenty years off, to a multicycled plutonium fuel. This material will be less than 50% plutonium-239 and the mix of Pu-238,Pu-240,Pu-241, and Pu-242 (with a little bit of Pu-244 showing up on the side) will make this plutonium ideal for nuclear disarmament by making it possible to mix down any weapons grade plutonium that may still exist at that time.

Japan has an energy policy that makes sense both from an economic and from a safety standpoint.

[Ghost Dog]

5. That's useful info, thanks.

I believe Japan's spent fuel is still being shipped to the UK (Sellafield) for reprocessing (and subsequent return) - although Sellafield has a hell of a lot of problems... (??)