Abstract
Even before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster shut down all 48 Japanese nuclear reactors, Japan’s plan to reprocess its spent nuclear fuel and use the recovered plutonium and uranium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in its nuclear power plants suffered from significant delays.
The country now has a stockpile of some 44 metric tons of plutonium, with more than nine metric tons in Japan and about 35 metric tons in Europe that must eventually be returned to Japan. With formidable challenges precluding any quick or easy route for using or disposing of this material, Japan has a major plutonium problem on its hands.
This problem not only has produced a national test for managing Japan’s plutonium, but also has intensified apprehensions by neighboring states about Japan’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Nonproliferation analysts have expressed concerns that such a stockpile sets a poor example for the global nonproliferation regime and increases the risks of nuclear theft. Reducing or eliminating this stockpile will be daunting and take many years to accomplish, but Japan could alleviate international apprehensions and strengthen the global nonproliferation regime by placing its excess plutonium under the custody of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).