TOKYOMarch/April 2006 NUKECitizens' Nuclear INFO Information Center No. 111 3F Kotobuki Bldg., 1-58-15, Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003, JAPAN URL: http://cnic.jp/english/ e-mail : [email protected] Rokkasho: active tests set to begin any day Table 1 1956 Atomic Energy Commission of Japan adopts a policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and extracting plutonium. 1971 Construction commences at Tokai reprocessing facility. 1977 President Carter reverses his opposition to Japanese reprocessing. 1981 Tokai reprocessing facility commences operations. 1985 The Governor of Aomori and the Mayor of Rokkasho accept a request from the Federation of Electric Power Sampling of beach sand (see article on page 3) Companies to establish a reprocessing (Photo by Shigeru Ogasawara) plant at Rokkasho. ctive tests at the Rokkasho reprocessing 1993 Construction of the Rokkasho plant are expected to commence very reprocessing plant commences. soon. For the first time, plutonium will 2001 Construction of the Rokkasho Abe separated from spent fuel at Rokkasho. Of reprocessing plant is completed. course, Japan has been separating plutonium at 2003 Chemical trials are completed (December) (radioactive substances not used). the Tokai facility since 1981, but Rokkasho will 2004 Uranium tests begin (using depleted be Japan's first industrial-scale reprocessing plant. (December) uranium). Indeed it will be the first such plant outside the 2006 Uranium tests are completed. nuclear weapons states, as defined in the Non- (January) Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India has reprocessing 2006 (soon) Active tests are due to begin (using facilities, but it is outside the NPT. Of course, this spent fuel). does not excuse India, but the international legal 2007 Rokkasho reprocessing plant is due to implications are different for Japan. (August) become fully operational. History of reprocessing in Japan Contents Perhaps now is a good time to recap some of the history of reprocessing in Japan. Table Rokkasho active tests to begin any day 1-3 1 shows that reprocessing was part of Japan's Rokkasho radiation survey 3,4 nuclear energy policy from the beginning. Cracks in hafnium control rods 5,6 President Carter agreed to allow Japan to Chernobyl 20th anniversary 7 reprocess spent fuel, despite his concerns about Toshiba gambles on Westinghouse 8 proliferation risks and despite abandoning Nuclear industry exports 9 reprocessing in the US. He did so as a result of Who's Who: Kazuyuki Takemoto 10 intense lobbying by the Japanese. A compromise News Watch 11,12 March/April 006 No. 111 Nuke Info Tokyo was reached whereby Japan agreed not to extract What do active tests involve? plutonium in pure form. Instead, plutonium would The objective of the active tests is to test be mixed with uranium and extracted as a mixed those functions which couldn't be checked oxide (MOX) powder. (Note that at this stage in during previous tests, including the quantity the fuel cycle it has not been fabricated into MOX of radioactivity released into the environment, fuel.) This was said to be more proliferation- separation of fission products, separation of resistant than pure plutonium oxide. The reality is, plutonium from uranium and treatment of liquid however, that the chemical process of separating and solid wastes. These functions can only be plutonium from the mixed oxide is not particularly tested using spent fuel. difficult. The IAEA treats MOX powder as a JNFL plans to reprocess 430 tons of spent fuel, "direct use" weapons-usable material, so clearly including 210 tons of PWR fuel and 220 tons of the compromise was a political compromise rather BWR fuel. The tests will be broken up into two than a scientifically based compromise. This main stages. The first stage will confirm safety compromise was later accepted by the IAEA, and performance of equipment and facilities. which shows that regardless of the importance of These will be tested to confirm that they perform IAEA safeguards on nuclear facilities, the IAEA's in accordance with design and that they operate decisions are essentially political rather than within design parameters. The second stage will scientific. This is an important point to remember test the whole plant by operating it in a manner in the context of the debate over Iranian uranium similar to real operations. The purpose of this is enrichment. to confirm that the plant will be able to operate Waiting for Aomori government approval safely at its full capacity of 800 tons of spent As this article is being written, Aomori fuel per year. Low burn-up spent fuel which Prefecture is debating whether to approve has been cooled for a long period of time will the commencement of active tests. Central be reprocessed before higher burn-up spent fuel government approval has already been given, so which has been cooled for a shorter period of time. it is expected that the tests will start soon after This is because the former is less radioactive than the Governor of Aomori gives his consent. He is the latter. Altogether, active tests are scheduled to expected to give his consent on the basis that the continue for 17 months. central government has assured him that the plant The highest burn-up that will be tested for is safe. A safety agreement will then be signed spent PWR fuel is 47,000 MWd/tU (cooled for between Aomori Prefecture, Rokkasho Village and between 6 and 17 years) and for spent BWR fuel Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL), which owns the is 40,000 MWd/tU. (cooled for between 8 and 20 plant. years). The highest burn-up currently permitted What is reprocessing? for fuel in Japanese reactors is 55,000 MWd/ The majority of spent nuclear fuel is uranium tU. However, no such fuel will be reprocessed which has not undergone any nuclear reaction. during the tests. In order to assess how much About one percent is plutonium, which is formed radioactivity will be released into the environment when uranium-238 captures a neutron. Another when this high burn-up fuel is reprocessed, approximately three percent of spent fuel is fission JNFL will extrapolate from results obtained for products. Besides plutonium, there are also other the lower burn-up fuels. For this, calculation heavy elements (collectively called actinides) codes including ORIGEN will be used. We formed by additional neutron capture and beta are skeptical that these calculations will give a release. Altogether, this represents a potent reliable indication of the amount of radioactivity mix millions of times more radioactive than the that will be released when high burn-up fuel is original fuel. During reprocessing, the spent fuel reprocessed. The projected maximum annual is dissolved in nitric acid and separated out into releases of radioactivity are shown in Tables 2 and three streams, uranium, plutonium and the rest. 3. JNFL will use these projections as the basis The latter category is by far the most radioactive of its assurance that a yearly dose of 0.022 milli- and is classified as high-level waste. Sieverts to members of the general public will Nuke Info Tokyo No. 111 March/April 006 not be exceeded. We believe JNFL is drawing Project to measure radioactivity a long bow to connect these calculations to this released from Rokkasho maximum annual dose. 1. Objective Table 2: Radioactivity in Aerial Releases It is impossible to operate the Rokkasho Isotope B e n c h m a r k ( f r o m reprocessing plant without discharging license application) radioactivity with the liquid and gaseous wastes. (Bq/year) It is, therefore, important for citizens to have 17 Krypton-85 3.3 x 10 information that they can trust about the pollution 15 Tritium 1.9 x 10 released into the surrounding environmental. 13 Carbon-14 5.2 x 10 There is a danger that agricultural produce will 10 Iodine-129 1.1 x 10 be radioactively contaminated in the course of Iodine-131 1.7 x 1010 the plant's normal operations, so it is essential to Other isotopes analyze the nature of the radioactive pollution alpha emitters 3.3 x 108 and highlight it as a social issue. For this, it is non-alpha emitters 9.4 x 1010 necessary to obtain environmental data before the Table 3: Radioactivity in Liquid Releases plant begins operations. We intend to measure Isotope B e n c h m a r k ( f r o m radioactive isotopes which are emitted in the license application) course of normal operations, in particular the beta (Bq/year) emitters tritium and carbon-14. Tritium 1.8 x 1016 . Operation of Rokkasho and radioactive Iodine-129 4.3 x 1010 pollution Iodine-131 1.7 x 1011 Active tests are scheduled to be carried out Other isotopes from March or April 2006 to July 2007. During alpha emitters 3.8 x 109 the course of these tests, it is planned that 430 non-alpha emitters 2.1 x 1011 tons of spent nuclear fuel will be reprocessed. During the active test phase, the plant will at times operate much the same as it will after A tale of two presidents commercial operations officially commence. There is a great irony in the fact that Rokkasho Once reprocessing begins, volatile isotopes such will begin separating plutonium so soon after as tritium, carbon-14, krypton-85 and iodine-129 President Bush announced that the U.S. plans to will be released into the atmosphere and all sorts return to reprocessing itself. The US plans to use of isotopes, including cesium-137, strontium-90 a different reprocessing method than that used at and plutonium, will be released from the liquid Rokkasho and other existing reprocessing plants.