From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker)
Subject: Re: NYT article on Japanese breeder
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:57:38 GMT

John McCarthy (jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: Today's (1992 Dec 20) _New York Times_ has an article by David E.
: Sanger entitled "Japan's Nuclear Fiasco" wishfully hoping that the
: Japanese plan to build an experimental breeder reactor will fail.  It
: is featured in the business section with an enormous cartoon,
: superimposing what I take to be a nuclear reactor on what might be one
: of the 49 views of Mt. Fuji.
: 
: The author is rather thin on his reasons for expecting the project to
: fail.

: John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
: *
: He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

	From _New Scientist_, 1 February 1992, article entitled:
"Japan's Plutonium Stockpile":

	"...The fault [expansion of liquid Na-carrying pipes] set back
the reactor's date of going critical from October 1992 to early next
year.  It was only the latest in a long series of frustrations for
Monju, which has been under construction since 1983 -- after a 10-year
battle for permission.  Even if Monju performs flawlessly, it will be
a long way from a commercial fast-breeder.   The next step will be to
build a "demonstration" reactor to bridge the gap between prototype and
commercial plant.  The government, which persuaded electrical utilities
to cough up 20 per cent of Monju's cost of 600 billion yen, wants private
industry to pay for the demonstrator.  But, as with the ATR (adv. thermal
reactor), utilities have shown little enthusiasm for funding future work.
Even the demonstrator will not be commercially viable.  Tetsuo Kobori,
deputy director of Monju construction, says that at least one or two
further demonstrators will be needed to cut costs and simplify the design
before the first commercial fast-breeder will enter service.
	All this means that the fast-breeder will not be a significant
contributor to the Japanese electrical grid for at least 30 years.  Last
August, Tokyo tacitly admitted that fact by announcing an important shift
in energy policy.  It would still bring its plutonium home, but for
consumption in conventional pressurized-water and boiling-water reactors
(known collectively as light-water reactors)."

	Article underscores Japanese and international concern on
how much plutonium Japan will stockpile from the shipments.

Oh yeah, numbers.  From Tatsujiro Sujuki, a Japanese nuclear engineer
at MIT:  "By 2010, Japan will have accumulated between 80 and 90 tonnes
of fissile plutonium;  30 tonnes from Europe, 6 tonnes from Tokai and
50 tonnes from Rokkasho." (Tokai and Rokkasho are reprocessing plants).

	Or, to put it another way:

	"...If the reprocessing policy is maintained, Japan will have an
enormous stockpile which will surpass in the 2020s all the military
plutonium ever produced by nuclear superpowers for weapons use."
(Jinzaburo Takagi, Citizens Nuclear Information Centre).

	Just though you'd like to know.

	Jim Acker
	jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov

	I don't make news, I just read it.








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