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Subject: Japanese Debating Plutonium Issue; Reaction From Environmentalists Fuels
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 04:36:11 EST
Message-ID: <48.1992Nov17.043611@AmeriCast.com>

Japanese Debating Plutonium Issue; Reaction From Environmental-
ists Fuels Argument About Policy<By T. R. Reid<Washington Post
Foreign Service=

TOKYO, Nov. 16 - While a Japanese freighter steams ahead with a
one-ton cargo of highly toxic plutonium, Japanese bureaucrats are
engaged in a running argument over the policy that launched the
shipment in the first place.

With international environmental groups on the attack and some
foreign governments expressing concern, officials at Japan's Sci-
ence and Technology Agency, which produced the idea of using
plutonium-fueled reactors to reduce dependence on imported ener-
gy, said there would be no change in a long-term program to ship
30 tons of plutonium from Europe to Japan over the next 18 years.

"We already have our plan," said Toichi Sakata, director of the
agency's Nuclear Fuel Division. "We have no reason to change our
plan now."

But the Foreign Ministry's diplomat in charge of nuclear issues
sees things differently.

"As a government, we stick to one voice on this," said Hiroyuki
Kishino, director of the Nuclear Energy Division. "But this does
not prevent each of us from having an opinion, and there are
various opinions within the government on this program."

Kishino conceded that there are doubts about proceeding with the
18-year plan, and that concern has increased in light of the cri-
ticism surrounding the current shipment of plutonium from France.
"The public reaction was more severe than we expected," he said.

There have been signs for months now that some government offi-
cials have doubts about the plutonium plan. Last April, a senior
government nuclear fuel specialist, Takao Ishiwatari, held a
press conference to warn that the government program - which he
helped design - would increase global plutonium proliferation.
Ishiwatari said then that some branches of the government were
searching for an alternative.

Second-guessing increased as the loading and shipment of plutoni-
um from a reprocessing plant in France sparked environmental pro-
tests.  Officials say they have been outmaneuvered on the public
relations front by such environmental groups as Greenpeace. While
the Japanese had hoped to carry out the long sea transit of the
plutonium in secrecy, a Greenpeace ship has followed the
freighter and its escort ship, flashing regular updates to the
press about the convoy's location.

As a result, officials now say they may announce when and exactly
where the plutonium will reach Japan.

The freighter Akatsuki Maru, accompanied by a single escort ship
from Japan's Coast Guard, left Cherbourg, France, on Nov. 7. The
French government made details of the voyage public and escorted
reporters to see the plutonium ship.  The program's basic idea,
similar to one considered and rejected in the United States more
than a decade ago, is to use plutonium to fuel "breeder" reac-
tors, a type of nuclear plant that in generating electric power
produces additional plutonium fuel at the same time.

This would eliminate the need for fossil-fueled power plants,
which require imported coal, gas and oil and which also contri-
bute to the "global warming" problem.

Japan has poured billions of dollars into building a plutonium
cycle over the last decade. But in that time, some assumptions
underlying it have changed. Uranium, a safer and easier-to-use
nuclear fuel, is more abundant and much cheaper than it was when
Japan committed to the expensive plutonium effort.

While some foreign governments and environmental groups are de-
bating Japan's plutonium shipment, there has been virtually no
mention of the issue by Japanese politicians.  "Fortunately or
unfortunately, the political parties have been more concerned
about (a political funding) scandal than about this issue,"
Kishino said.<02:37 11-17C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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