Japan, U.S. (secretly) negotiating construction of nuclear waste facility in Mongolia

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110509p2a00m0na017000c.html

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the U.S. Department of Energy have secretly been advancing plans to construct the world's first international storage and disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel in Mongolia, it has been learned.

The deal would enable Japan and the U.S., which lack disposal sites of their own, to counter efforts by Russia and France to market nuclear technology internationally by selling reactors and the disposal of nuclear waste services together as a set. Parties involved in negotiations acknowledged the secret plans when interviewed by the Mainichi.

In return for the deal, Mongolia would receive nuclear power technology from Japan and the U.S. However, the nuclear crisis sparked by the earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant has pressured the Japanese government to rethink its nuclear power policies, and the move to burden a third party with the task of disposing of nuclear waste is likely to draw criticism.

Sources familiar with the plans said negotiations started in late September last year at the initiative of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Mongolian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade handled talks, which were facilitated by the fact that there are no immediate prospects of Japan or the U.S. being able to settle on nuclear waste disposal sites of their own and Mongolia wants technological support to construct nuclear fuel processing plants and nuclear fuel storage facilities.

<more>

=(