FROM ABOVE - see http://thediplomat.com/2016/04/why-japans-rokkasho-nuclear-reprocessing-plant-lives-on/

The Aomori Energy Policy Board declined to speculate for the record as to what would happen if the Rokkasho plant and its associated facilities, such as the MOX manufacturing plant, should be closed down. It is understood, however, that the prefecture would demand that spent fuel sitting in the Rokkasho spent fuel pool and any dry casks sent to the Mutsu Interim Storage Facility be returned to the owners. They are willing to support a closed fuel cycle, but are not interested in turning Aomori prefecture into a permanent waste repository.

Todd Crowell is Japan correspondent for Anadolu, the Turkish news agency, and previously served as a Senior Writer for Asiaweek. He has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor; Asian Wall Street Journal and other publications.

ENDS

There you have it people. Enrichment and the Uranium/Plutonium REPROCESSING process depicted here is simple.

It only takes thirty years to establish and is as cheap, easy and apolitical as an Eastern Seaboard Very Fast Train Project.

Yes Australia doesn't have the money but we engineers need the jobs and the high incomes a centralised, capital intensive, nuclear industry will yield.

And we need to get our grand nuclear programs in fast due to the:

- threat of relatively cheap, efficient gas/oil/coal power station replacement programs

- the realisation that Greenhouse Gases are either unstoppable or a Greenie con, and

- incoming solar + battery technology may prove too cheap, logical and efficient

This threatens the centralised nuclear electricity model which originated from 1950s-1960s thinking but was becoming discredited by the 1970s.

Thanks for the 10s of Billions of your money - suckers ;-)

Signed

Deep-voiced blokey
Engineer or Physicist

Geez, plantagenet, what's wrong with just giving us the link instead of your daily quota?

Whatever, your obscure point is harpooned by "These operational problems stemmed from Japan’s stubborn determination to scale up the more primitive reprocessing operations at the Tokai development site rather than buy a tried-and-true system from France."

The French experience of 50 years, and of nuclear powered shipping, is safe, cheap, continuous, clean energy. The waste issue is completely over-blown, and South Australia has something to offer on that front, if it's smart.

The solar/battery dream is a non-solution to AGW. The EROEI issue necessitating preposterously massive installation to meet societal needs (assuming EROEI is even greater than 1), residual intermittency issues (i.e. even with battery backup), and the need for almost equivalent capacity fossil-fuel backup, make the solution completely untenable.

I believed in carbon pricing for awhile, but as the money raised would be poured into subsidizing more pointless renewables, while nuclear would continue to be nobbled by the scare-mongering of your ilk, I now reject it.

I won't vote for any party that has a deep, illogical commitment to renewables.

PS Greens latest policy against offshore/onshore detention just shows how divorced from logic the party is. So we ship/fly in those who get as far as indonesia, say, and pass muster as true refugees. If that's not all of them, won't the rest get in boats, and what do we do then? If they're all refugees and we limit our total refugee intake to a figure, what do we do then, and what about those waiting elsewhere in the processing queue? The party runs entirely on hormones and emotion.

The Greens are as coy about stating their bottom line on asylum/immigration as the Pilgerites are about stating their bottom line on Aboriginal relations. What do the Greens propose we actually DO about immigration and asylum seekers? How many do we take? What do we do about importing a Moslem Fifth Column [1]? Concrete policies.

As for the nuke heads, they are utterly dependent on the AGW scam. If it unravels so do they. If there's a disaster like a major leak from the 20 thousand-odd drums of nuclear waste dumped in the English Channel or anywhere else, or the unstoppable trend towards renewable base load power sources continues unabated, and bang goes the head of steam they are working up to support their campaign to endanger the people of Australia with a uranium/plutonium cycle to support GE and a career stream.

[1] http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2015/04/mike-dobbins-gives-public-apology-to.html

Plant and EJ,

I find it somewhat disingenuous to throw around the large numbers involved with nuclear enrichment and reprocessing without comparison to the industry in total.

True Rokkasho has cost $27bn, but it has been operational for more than a decade and not only supplies fuel to 54 reactors (in 2011) refining roughly 8000t p.a. of raw uranium, but in reprocessing the waste product 800t p.a. of spent fuel rods (and producing MOX fuel drastically reduces the total waste by about 95%, produces isotopes for medicine and industry, and enables the consumption of the plutonium by product.

The value of the nuclear power Japan generates in the order of $15bn p.a. worth of power (not incl distribution costs) at a cost lower than the fossil fuel power stations that have to import coal.
Notably France which generates 80% of its power by nuclear and reprocesses the waste also has one of the lowest electricity costs in the EU and relatively little waste.

As for "unstoppable trend towards renewable base load power sources" Dream on. The closest they got after decades of research is the molten salt storage which stores a few additional hours of generation capacity at nearly 10x the cost of coal generation, and more than double the cost of nuclear.

Hi Shadow Minister

Yes. Well. There is that.

Also the prospect of a Trump Presidency* removing the nuclear umbrella protecting Japan has reignited thinking about a nuclear armed Japan.

If one reads up about the Wonderful World of Weapons Grade Plutonium one will notice that a reprocessing plant is an important production preliminary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons-grade#Weapons-grade_plutonium The Japanese may insist that there is heap of reason why Rokkasho could not produce weapons grade but the plant can be modified.

* "Donald Trump has said he is open to the idea of both Japan and South Korea developing their own nuclear weapons" This "would reduce pressure in the United States to come to their defense against North Korea and China."
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/27/world/politics-diplomacy-world/trump-details-america-first-foreign-policy-views-threatening-withdraw-troops-japan-south-korea/

A Trump Presidency could usher in a most interesting regional nuclear arms race. Australia becoming involved in U enrichment and Pu reprocessing could give us a head start in this race.

Pete

Shaddow Minister,

Excellent comment. But it provides a good of how the anti-nukes (and intellectually dishonest people) behave? When confronted by relevant facts they do not consider them and debate them. Instead they bring up irrelevancies in an attempt to switch discussion away from the relevant facts. This is #4 of the '10 signs of intellectual dishonesty' - in short: "Hey, look over there" https://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/

Their repugnant moral values should be pointed out. The anti-nukes are responsible for millions of fatalities worldwide and for electricity prices being around an order of magnitude higher than they would have been if not for their 50 years of dishonest, scaremongering, propaganda campaigns. These people seem to be devoid of emparthy or reasonably moral values.

Had nuclear power continued costs continued to decline as they had been up to about 1970, the people of the world would have been far better off now. They would have had higher GDP per capita, higher living standards, most of the 3 billion people with no or unreliable electricity supply would now have reliable electricity. The world would now be a far better place than it is. Thank the anti-nukes for blocking progress.

Plantagenet is an example of those with the most repugnant moral values.

Shaddow Minister, did you see this link when I posted it previously? https://judithcurry.com/2016/03/13/nuclear-power-learning-rates-policy-implications/