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LEAD: Japan can burn 6.5 tons of plutonium a year under plan+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, Jan. 6_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING LOCAL COMMUNITY'S REACTIONS)
Japanese power companies said Friday a maximum amount of 6.5 tons of plutonium can be burned annually at nuclear plants after the so-called "pluthermal" power-generation project gets under way.
The 11 companies released for the first time their plans on how they will use plutonium, hoping to address possible domestic and overseas concerns that Japan may hold a surplus inventory of the radioactive substance, a key ingredient for nuclear weapons.
But the plans released Friday fell short of providing concrete figures to convince people that Japan will consume all plutonium it keeps and produces for peaceful purposes.
Moreover, none of the 11 has obtained final consent from local communities to the pluthermal plan yet due to lingering uncertainties over details.
The 11 firms comprise Tokyo Electric Power Co., the nation's largest utility, and nine other power companies that run nuclear power plants, and power wholesaler Electric Power Development Co., which is planning to build one.
The plutonium consumption plans are subject to approval by the governmental Atomic Energy Commission, which has urged the firms to disclose data.
The electric utilities envisage using plutonium at nuclear reactors for the plutonium-thermal power generation method in which mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel, or MOX fuel, is burned.
The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan plans to put the pluthermal power generation under way at 16 or 18 power plants by the end of fiscal 2010.
For the project, the companies have been trying to procure plutonium reprocessed both in Japan and overseas, namely Britain and France.
The companies said Friday they plan to first use plutonium produced overseas at the pluthermal plants and start to burn domestically produced plutonium at an unspecified time in 2012 or later.
According to the estimation, the companies plan to obtain a combined 1.6 tons of plutonium to be reprocessed from spent nuclear fuels at a plant in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, by the end of fiscal 2006.
Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., which runs the reprocessing plant, will start a test operation to extract plutonium by the March end of fiscal 2005 so plutonium can be produced as early as this spring.
JNF envisages that the reprocessing plant can yearly produce 4-plus tons of plutonium at full operation in the future.
The companies currently keep a total of about 30 tons of plutonium which has been reprocessed in Britain and France, an amount which they say can be burned at the pluthermal reactors within about 15 years.
Commenting on the plan, Niigata Gov. Hirohiko Izumida stressed a need for electric firms to win approval from local municipalities which will host pluthermal nuclear plants under the scheme.
"The fundamental problem of how spent nuclear fuels should be dealt with has yet to be solved. It's time for discussion," Izumida said. Niigata hosts seven of Tokyo Electric's nuclear plants.
Harukuni Tanaka, who heads the federation's nuclear power department, defended the plan, saying, "It clearly shows that each electric company will burn plutonium at their own nuclear power plants and that other uses other than peaceful purposes are unthinkable."
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