FUKUOKA —

Japan’s first plutonium-thermal power generation will effectively start Thursday at Kyushu Electric Power Co’s Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture, as the utility firm announced the start-up of the No. 3 reactor there Wednesday.
   
Kyushu Electric loaded plutonium-uranium mixed oxide, or MOX, into the reactor to commence test runs of so-called ‘‘pluthermal’’ power generation.

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2 Comments

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  S7ro9kGm3aQ at 12:01 AM JST - 5th November

  Nuclear Japan: hate the weapons, love everything else.

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  stipend at 02:00 AM JST - 12th November

  Yeah? Give this a thought..

  MOX fuel has no history in Japan. It's less stable than uranium. It's untested here. Japan's experimental and only "fast breeder" reactor Monju, was a cover up. A full on nuclear plant built, open half a year.. and mothballed. Just a massive white elephant and your taxes blown.

  MOX is one of the most dangerous substances known to man yet it is sent on the high seas around the Cape of Good Hope! back to Japan after reprocessing in France.

  http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit130/nit130articles/mox.html

  We have every reason to be critical of government and industry here.

  The byproduct of MOX fuel is weapons-grade plutonium. Is Japan going nuclear? Let's all hope not, but it now becomes possible.

  In theory this enriched plutonium was supposed to be fed into Japan's fast breeder reactor Monju and disposed of in that way. Monju is dead in the water. It can't be done.

  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/editorial/news/20091106p2a00m0na003000c.html

  fast-breeder reactors and reprocessing plants -- crucial to Japan's envisioned nuclear fuel cycle -- have been met with numerous stumbling blocks, and their future remains unclear.

  In other words: Weapons-grade plutonium is about to start piling up on these shores. While this alone presents very serious dangers for Japan, it also has the potential of igniting the next arms race -that of plutonium stockpiling. You've got that much nuclear warhead material ready to go, then so will I - could easily become the next mantra of every nuclear powered nation.

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