Japan has adopted a nuclear fuel cycle policy. This means that spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed. Reprocessing is a chemical process that recovers plutonium and re-usable uranium from spent fuel and separates radioactive wastes into more manageable forms. Once recovered, the plutonium is ready to be re-introduced into the nuclear fuel cycle in the form known as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.
MOX utilization offers many advantages. It adds to long-term energy security by further reducing dependence on imported fuels; it conserves uranium resources; and it reduces the amount of highly radioactive waste that must be disposed of. Nuclear power is a key energy source in Japan, with the added benefit of no carbon dioxide emissions. Consequently, nuclear power plays a strong role in controlling global warming problems.
Nuclear power generation and MOX utilization offer Japan, a country that combines large energy consumption with scarce natural resources, long-term advantages. Japan relies on imports for over 80% of its primary energy requirements, including uranium.
MOX fuel contains significant energy potential. One pellet of MOX fuel, which weighs about six grams, can generate the energy equivalent of one ton of coal. A single MOX fuel assembly produces enough electricity to supply 30,000 Japanese families for an entire year.
As Japan does not yet possess a domestic commercial reprocessing plant, Japanese utility companies have contracted with Cogema in France and BNFL in the U.K. to reprocess 7,100 tons of uranium in their spent fuel. Under these contracts, it is expected that approximately 30 tons of plutonium will be recovered. Except for an amount to be used for research and development purposes, the majority of the recovered plutonium will be burned in the utilities' light water reactors (LWRs) as MOX fuel. The completed MOX fuel assemblies from the U.K. and France will be transported back to the Japanese utility companies' reactors.
MOX fuel is made with plutonium oxide and uranium oxide. The characteristics and behavior of MOX fuel have few differences from those of uranium fuel. As of 2001, more than 3,500 MOX fuel assemblies have been used in nuclear power reactors, mainly in Europe. Its use in Japan has been demonstrated successfully. Plutonium is already being used as fuel in existing LWRs. In fact, some 30% of the power generated in nuclear reactors comes from burning the plutonium that results from the fission process. This extensive experience has proven that MOX fuel utilization can be conducted very safely.
At the same time, a commercial reprocessing plant is being constructed in northern Japan by Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, a company owned in large part by Japan's electric power companies. It is scheduled to begin operation in 2005, with a designed capacity of 800 tons uranium per year. Plutonium recovered at the domestic reprocessing plant will be fabricated into MOX fuel assemblies in Japan. There is also a plan to construct a domestic MOX fabrication plant with an annual capacity of approximately 130 tons heavy metal per year.
Clearly there are great benefits from reprocessing and MOX fuel use for a country like Japan.
