Leventhala and Dolley reported in 1994 that Japan could acquire a 50-year reserve of low-enriched uranium fuel for its nuclear power plants at about half the cost of its plutonium program, providing energy security and major economic and political benefits. Fuel for light-water reactors made with plutonium costs four to eight times as much as conventional uranium fuel.
Japan Recyling "Used" Fuel.
Japan can develop a Strategic Uranium Reserve to address its energy security concerns and eliminate any need to proceed now with plutonium recycling with its many attendant costs and nuclear proliferation risks. Such a reserve could provide as much as a 50-year, energy-secure timeframe within which Japan could develop the commercial breeder reactor later on, if necessary. A discounted cash flow analysis demonstrates that, by developing a 50-year uranium reserve instead of a commercial plutonium and breeder program, Japan could save up to $22.7 billion. Savings would be greater (up to $38.4
billion) if an enriched-uranium reserve smaller than the extreme 50-year example or a reserve of natural uranium were acquired. The reserve would also make a major contribution to keeping the Asia-Pacific region free of weapons-usable nuclear materials.
The basic point of the authors study, despite BNFL’s attempt todiscredit it, has proven to be irrefutable: both economically and politically, across a wide range of price assumptions, plutonium reprocessing/recycle is a bad bargain. For apan, its plutonium program is considerably more expensive and riskier than a once-through uranium cycle, even when this cycle is supplemented by a 50- year Strategic Uranium Reserve. The only significant challenge to the results of this study has come from BNFL, a vested interest that expects to make billions of dollars from reprocessing Japanese spent fuel. Plutonium is not economical, but BNFL obviously expects it to be profitable. Objective analysis, however, reveals the folly of the plutonium path being pursued by Japan and
advocated by BNFL.
It should now be apparent that a Strategic Uranium Reserve makes economic and energy-security sense for Japan. Nuclear policymakers in the United States and Russia should be prepared to offer to sell Japan some blended-down HEU for a Strategic Uranium Reserve both as a means of satisfying Japan’s legitimate energy-security concerns and of drawing down large surpluses of this unneeded material. Such an offer would provide Japan a viable, cost effective alternative to plutonium and a means to avoid proliferation and terrorism risks associated with plutonium commerce.
Yet, even if present marketing plans make it impractical to offer demilitarized uranium to Japan for a reserve of LEU, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union have enormous, under-utilized uranium resources and production and enrichment capacity that they could make available to Japan with great potential benefit to their ailing uranium industries. At the same time, Japanese reprocessing contracts with Britain and France could be renegotiated to provide spent-fuel storage plus uranium enrichment services instead of unnecessary recovery and shipment of plutonium (“storage plus SWU in lieu of Pu”).
At the same time, Japan could suspend plans to construct a commercial reprocessing plant at Rokkasho-mura and to recycle surplus plutonium in light-water reactors. The existing pilot reprocessing plant at Tokai-mura could continue to be utilized to provide plutonium for a limited R&D program involving the pilot Monju and experimental Joyo breeder reactors. With a Strategic Uranium Reserve, Japan could rest assured that as much as a half-century of energy security provided by an LEU stockpile would be available to be carried forward into the future. Japan need not go beyond the limits of its present breeder R&D program because the reserve would establish a timeframe within which Japan could develop a commercial-scale breeder program if uranium shortages ever occurred that necessitated a move toward commercial-scale recovery and recycling of plutonium.
Stockpiling petroleum is an internationally recognized form of insurance against supply and price instabilities. Japanese stockpiling of natural or lowenriched uranium is long overdue. It would present far fewer political and security problems for Japan than proceeding with additional sea shipments of plutonium and attempting to avoid a plutonium surplus that may prove unavoidable due to delays in the FBR and MOX programs. Continuing along the plutonium path could have serious repercussions for Japan both on the Korean Peninsula and in its bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
Efficient utilization of nuclear power does not require Japan or any other nation to shoulder the substantial costs and risks of a plutonium economy. Ensuring a secure fuel supply—the objective of Japan’s present plan to acquire nearly 100 metric tons of plutonium by 2010—can be achieved at substantially less cost and risk by means of a Strategic Uranium Reserve.
Current conditions in Japan (here).
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