- Robin des Bois - https://robindesbois.org/en -

Delivery of nuclear fuel to Japan. Position of Robin des Bois

The new Japanese Nuclear Safety Authority (NRA – Nuclear Regulation Authority) is considered independent. It will publish this summer 2013 a collection of basic safety rules and prescribe generic or specific work to each nuclear site in the archipelago.

These preventive improvements will take several months to a few years. They will be carried out under the precondition that the political decision to relaunch nuclear power is affirmed and accepted by civil society.

The risks of a transoceanic shipping of spent fuel containing plutonium are unacceptable today, particularly because of political, military and nuclear tensions between North Korea, South Korea and Japan.

However, a new and adventurous expedition between France and Japan is imminent. It will involve physical protection by the United Kingdom, the United States and France. This military character will not eliminate risks to maritime safety, the marine environment and fishing activities if the carrier vessel were to collide with another ship or sink.

The French State and Areva, the company that produces the MOX fuel (Mixed Oxide), already share in the responsibility of the Fukushima disaster since they accepted the export of nuclear fuel into an unsuitable, poorly organized site saturated with nuclear waste.

The French State, Areva and the French Nuclear Safety Authority cannot allow this delivery to take place as long as Japan’s energy policy and management of nuclear power plants are not clarified.

As a result, Robin des Bois demands the cancellation of the delivery of MOX to reactor No. 3 on the Takahama site, which borders the Pacific Ocean in a region that Japan affectionately nicknamed, in recognition of its atomic partnership with France, the “Champs Elysées of nuclear power.”