WASHINGTON — In October, Japan plans to open a massive plutonium production plant as part of a countrywide energy plan to boost its production of nuclear energy resources, but countries are worried that the plant could become a terrorist target as a source of material for nuclear weapons — or that the Japanese will build nuclear weapons for the first time.
When opened, the Rokkasho Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facility will be one of the largest plutonium production installations in the world.
The international community is worried about the security of the new facility because stockpiles of plutonium can be used to fuel both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. A terrorist security breach that compromised Rokkasho’s stockpiles would put the world at high risk — and Japan’s lax security regulations have the White House concerned.
The debate
South Korea also expressed its concerns about Japan’s motives, especially given the minimal commercial viability of the plant and Japanese conservatives’ persistent push for their own nuclear weapon program. Japan is the fifth-largest controller of the world’s plutonium resources, but the top four — Russia, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and France — all possess nuclear weapons, while Japan does not because of a 47-year ban on nuclear weapons production in Japan. But there is political pressure to drop the ban.
“They do not say it in public, but they wish to have the capability to create nuclear weapons in case of a threat,” former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity.
The security
At a Brookings Institution panel discussion Friday, speakers from the Center for Public Integrity urged officials to take higher security measures at Rokkasho before its production officially opens. CPI journalist R. Jeffrey Smith said, there’s no guarantee that the plutonium “cannot be diverted or stolen.” But Japan’s security remains lackluster by any standards, he said, because leaders refuse to consider theft a possibility.
The $22 billion facility, which will produce up to eight metric tons of plutonium a year, isn’t supplying any of its own armed security guards. Instead, it is relying on police forces to provide armed support.
Japanese hesitance to bolster security stems from a long-held belief that terrorism isn’t a problem within the country. Because guns are illegal to purchase in Japan, officials argue that armed guards don’t serve much a purpose.
The Obama administration’s frustration with that attitudemen has become apparent, Smith said.
According to a presentation by Smith and his colleague Douglas Birch, an Obama official reported that the security normally expected at a nuclear site simply “is not there.” As Birch sees it, officials at the plant are mistakenly treating a national security situation as a matter of law enforcement instead of one worthy of military force.
“There’s no country so safe that they don’t need security,” he said.
