Japan, which currently produces about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, is turning to a plutonium-based fuel to supplement its existing energy programs. For the resource-poor country, recycling reprocessed plutonium – which can also be used to produce nuclear weapons – can help reduce dependence on foreign energy supplies.
There are still some issues to be resolved in implementing the program, however. The process involves burning a mixed plutonium-uranium oxide, or MOX fuel, in conventional light water reactors.
MOX fuel is made by mixing plutonium extracted from nuclear spent fuel with uranium. It has been used in 57 nuclear reactors in nine countries so far, and is currently fueling 35 reactors in France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. Only two plants, in France and Britain, are currently producing commercial quantities of the fuel.
Two tankers carrying fuel produced by French nuclear giant Areva are expected to arrive in ...