From: jcliu@four-lab4.Berkeley.EDU (James C. Liu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Try it again - RE: Please give me your opinions...
Date: 6 Nov 1992 03:06:14 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: four-lab4.berkeley.edu

In article <5NOV199216013945@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov>
edwind@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tom Ng) posts the complete article
(Does America Say Yes To Japan?):

First Point:  You're missing text in the section "WHERE IT ALL BEGINS."
after the word "shame:"

2nd Point:  Japan has 2 breeder reactors.  Yes, they make plutonium. 
But, one should realize that Japan has no natural Uranium resources of
it's own.  Japan, like France is developing fuel reprocessing and using
mixed-oxide fuel (i.e. UO2-PuO2) as a way to reduce dependency on
foreign unranium resources.  So what if they get nuclear weapons?  Fission
warheads are stone-age.  H-bombs are far more potent and completely
within Japan's capability, but Japan is not currently stockpiling tritium
like we do in America.  Face it, we have much more megatonnage, 
extremely high tech delivery systems, and we've tested our weapons so
we know that our implosion techniques work.  The Japanese have the technology
and the resources to build a bomb, sure, but why?  They know they can't
kick America's military ass, like they don't even have a sufficient navy to
project military power to secure territory which they supposedly can
take over.  To insinuate that Japan will use nukes or threaten with them
takes this Japan bashing too far!

BTW, the world only has around 300 years of U-235 for fission reactors.
Without breeding ( Thorium-U-233 cycle or U-Pu cycle) the world
will run out  unless it becomes cost effective to extract U-235 from
sea water (yes, seawater contains uranium!) which would extend our 
supply perhaps another 1000 years.  With fission breeders, there's the
possibility of reduced volumetric output of high level waste, a tens of
thousands of years fuel supply, and use actinide burning which can
reduce the longevity of high-level waste from millions of years to perhaps
900 years or so.  Based on these considerations, there is justifiable 
economic and energy security reasons for Japan and other nations to be
developing breeders.  

3rd Point:  America is still No. 1 is a lot of things.  Most
importantly, it is the No. 1 market for all the world's products.  Japan
has no resources of its own.  I relies on trade surpluses to put cash in
the bank for a rainy day.  When the giant national debt bites the
American consumer back and lashes out with lowered standard of living
and recession, and inflation, and every bad economic omen, you'll see
the other great nations of the world suffer too.  Each nation is
interdependent on each other.  Why be divisive with this one-sided
Japan bashing?

4th point:  America rebuilt Japan after WWII.  But let's give some credit to
to hard work that almost 2 generations of Japanese workers put into that
rebuilding too. Now that Japan has caught up in terms of standard of living,
what was the purpose of bashing Japan? To put Japan back into poor house
again so America can gloat about being number 1 again?  Business is war
regardless of what companies and what countries are involved.  I'm
curious; how many Japanese companies and other nations' companies are
partly owned by American companies?

5th point:  The author forgot to mention that American's businessmen
going to Japan, shouldn't just learn Japanese.  They should also learn to
hold their alcohol and sing Japanese Karaoke! ;-).

Jaa, James
=======================================================================
James C. Liu |    KARAOKE Addict!     Karaoke: You're the STAR!!!!    |
             |    Wanna go? Need someone who sings worse than you do? |
             |    Know about a cool karaoke bar? send e-mail          |
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan