Plutonium-Laden Freighter Arrives in Japan

A plutonium-loaded Japanese freighter, whose 20,000-mile journey around the globe has drawn world attention to Japan’s controversial nuclear energy policies, arrived safely at a port 75 miles north of here today.

Half a dozen rubber dinghies manned by activists churned the waters in the port, and a few hundred demonstrators protested noisily on shore as the 3,800-ton Akatsuki Maru sailed into the private port of Japan’s Tokai nuclear complex shortly after 7 a.m.

Although hundreds of reporters were also present, the ship’s arrival received little attention on the news in Japan and was barely noted as Japanese quietly returned to work after a one-week New Year’s holiday.

In Tokai, almost 2,000 police were mobilized as preparations were made to load 15 six-foot steel casks containing the plutonium onto trucks; they were to be transported two miles on a private road to the fuel fabrication plant of the Power Reactor & Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., a quasi-governmental venture.

The plutonium will be stored until about midyear, when it will be fired into black ceramic bits and packed into fuel rods, a spokesman said. The fuel rods will then be loaded into the breeder reactor Monju, on Japan’s northwest coast; it is scheduled to go into operation by year’s end.

The breeder reactor is a critical part of a controversial Japanese plan to move toward energy independence by using for fuel the plutonium generated as waste by nuclear power plants.

The recently arrived plutonium was extracted from spent Japanese nuclear fuel by a French reprocessing plant. Although other nations have abandoned their breeder-reactor programs because of fears of nuclear proliferation and technical concerns, Japan plans to import 30 tons of plutonium over the next decade for use in its nuclear energy program.

The Akatsuki Maru, which left Cherbourg, France, on Nov. 7 with its radioactive cargo, drew official protests from more than a dozen countries before and during its two-month voyage around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, past Australia and through the Pacific.

Japan initially sought to keep the ship’s voyage secret. But a Greenpeace ship trailed the freighter much of the way.

Nuclear activists say Japan’s importing program will result in a large surplus of plutonium that could become an environmental hazard. The plutonium could also be obtained by terrorists for use in building atomic bombs, they say. Critics also say Japan’s plutonium program undercuts efforts to force countries like North Korea to abandon their plans to produce plutonium.

Controlling the spread of plutonium has become a key concern of the United Nations since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Plans to dismantle American and Soviet nuclear weapons also raise concern about access by terrorists to plutonium.