But the Rokkasho project is too little, too late, according to critics who say Japan is running so short of nuclear-waste storage that the entire industry risks shutdown within the next two decades unless a solution is found.
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What a bunch of CRAP from the anti-nukes. The USA has double the number of nuclear power plants that the Japanese have. The USA has been operating them longer, and the USA has NOT reprocessed the spent nuclear fuel. All this would augger to maximize the amount of spent nuclear fuel on hand. Even with all that; the amount of spent nuclear fuel in the USA is 77,000 metric tonnes. Sounds like a lot; but if you were to gather it into one place; it would fill a volume the size of a typical high school gymnasium.

Contrary to the claims of the anti-nukes; the amount of spent fuel is not "mountains".

One can easily reduce that volume by a factor of 25 if one merely reprocesses. Spent nuclear fuel consists of 96% Uranium-238, a couple percent Plutonium and other actinides, and a couple percent fission products. But the majority component, the 96% that is U-238 is no more radioactive than the day it was dug out of the ground. Natural uranium is 99.3% U-238. So if we separate out the 96% of spent fuel that is U-238; we could just put it back into the ground where it came from originally.

Additionally, the Rokkasho plant is Japan's SECOND reprocessing facility. The Japanese have another reprocessing facility at Tokai that has been successfully operating for over a decade:

http://www.jaea.go.jp/english/04/tokai-cycle/02.htm

PamW

The recycling efforts in Japan have been an abysmal failure.

That may be true for Japan; but NOT the USA.

The Japanese fast reactor program has been less than stellar scientifically.

In the USA, we have the opposite problem; scientifically we have had great success with fast reactors. It's the politics that has been the problem in the USA.

The USA successfully operated Experimental Breeder Reactor II ( EBR-II ) in Idaho for DECADES without incident. That all culminated with EBR-II being converted to a prototype Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).

Courtesy of PBS's Frontline, an interview by Pulitzer-Prize winner Richard Rhodes with nuclear physicist and then Associate Director of Argonne National Lab, Dr. Charles Till:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

EBR-II operated flawlessly, as was the successful testing of the IFR concept. EBR-II / IFR weren't shutdown by accidents, or cost overruns, or poor science. No they were shutdown by the narrow minded vision of, I'm sorry to say; a Democratic President in one William Jefferson Clinton.

PamW

If Japan can't do it neither can we.

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 04:18 PM - Edit history (1)

If Japan can't do it neither can we.
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BALONEY!!! This is Kris' typical MO of IGNORING the evidence.

The Japanese have been less than successful with their Monju fast reactor.

However, the US program / experience with EBR-II / IFR has been much different - it has been successful.

Did the Japanese have a fire in their Monju reactor. YES. Did the USA ever have a sodium fire in EBR-II / IFR? NO!!

Right there is something the US program did that the Japanese didn't. The US designs have had provisions to prevent sodium fires that were lacking in the Japanese systems.

So right there - we have an example that Kris' statement above is just a self-serving LIE - the Japanese couldn't run a fast reactor without a fire and the US did.

So the US did something the Japanese didn't.

The Japanese really haven't been stellar in the nuclear field as they have been in electronics, cars, and other fields. In fact, they really don't measure up to international standards and now realize that following Fukushima, as their chief regulator admits:

Nuclear Safety Chief says Lax Rules led to Fukushima Crisis

http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LZF0E16JTSEY01...

Japan's atomic safety rules are inferior to global standards and left the country unprepared for the Fukushima nuclear disaster last March, the country's top nuclear regulator told a parliamentary investigation.

Kris - you don't even ATTEMPT to do decent scholarship. You don't look up the history, you don't find out the facts. You don't go to the LIBRARY - you "think" that everything pertinent is online; when it isn't.

I don't know how you face yourself, let alone this forum; when all you have is self-serving propaganda with nothing to back it up.

PamW