Oct 12 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - William Hollingworth Kyodo News International, Tokyo

A series of shipments containing highly radioactive waste will leave Britain for Japan next year, with possibly more consignments afterward if Japanese electricity companies agree to a deal offered by the British government, a Japanese power industry source told Kyodo News recently.

A total of approximately 127,500 liters of waste -- the result of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel -- will be sent to the Rokkasho nuclear facility in Aomori Prefecture in northeastern Japan from British Nuclear Group Ltd. in Sellafield, northwest England.

About 10 shipments will be made, probably in spring or autumn, said an authoritative source. The "high-level" waste or HLW, which is mixed with glass and hardened, will be contained in steel canisters and transported in specially designed ultra-secure ships.

It will be kept buried at Rokkasho for at least 40 years.

Return of the HLW has been delayed because BNG has been fixing some problems with its reprocessing plant but these now appear to be rectified.

Environmentalists oppose the shipments.

Martin Forwood, an antinuclear campaigner who lives near Sellafield, said, "We object to the shipments on the basis of the risks of conventional and nuclear accidents, not to mention any acts of terrorism en route and the environmental consequences.

"We take the view that it would be far more sensible to keep all wastes at Sellafield on the principle that it reduces overseas transports to zero: ie. no more wastes to Sellafield and no wastes out." The waste is the result of several decades of state-owned BNG reprocessing spent uranium nuclear fuel from Japanese electric companies. Reprocessing produces fresh uranium, plutonium and highly radioactive waste.

The fresh uranium recovered from the reprocessing is likely to be enriched in Russia in order to make fresh fuel. The waste must be taken back as part of the contract. The HLW has been cooled down for several years in order to be sent back to Japan.

In addition to HLW, the reprocessing also results in intermediate and low-level waste (ILW and LLW). This is less radioactive but larger in volume than HLW.

Whereas HLW contains 99 percent of the radioactivity in the used fuel, the ILW carries only one percent. ILW is made up of things like fuel element cladding, contaminated equipment and sludge that come from the treatment process. LLW is things like paper towels, clothing and lab equipment used in connection with the radioactive materials.

The governor of Aomori Prefecture and 10 Japanese electric companies, which each own a share of the waste, are currently considering a plan submitted by the British government and BNG regarding what to do with the Japanese-owned ILW and LLW.

Britain has offered to retain and bury all of Japan's ILW and LLW. In return, however, the Japanese electricity companies will have to take back some of BNG's remaining stocks of HLW from other countries.

If the deal went ahead, the total level of radioactivity in the waste taken back to Japan would remain the same as if all of Japan's ILW and LLW had been returned.

Any decision is likely to come after the new Rokkasho reprocessing facility gets up and running at the beginning of next year.

An informed source told Kyodo News, "I think that the Japanese utilities will go ahead with the substitution plan as there is a lot of merit to it." The scheme reduces shipping and disposal costs for the Japanese electric companies.

BNG offered to keep the bulkier waste as it has more space for disposal than in Japan. The company will also charge the Japanese electric companies around $5 million -- the costs of rearranging the waste shipments and deciding what HLW to send back.

It has been worked out that if the plan is agreed, an additional 22,500 liters of HLW will be sent to Japan. The utility firms do not anticipate any difficulties in getting agreement from the Japanese government for this plan.

Forwood opposes waste substitution because it means the continuance of shipments.

The plutonium left over from the reprocessing will be converted into a new MOX fuel -- a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides -- which will be transported back to Japan.

It is uncertain at this stage whether BNG will make the new fuel or if it will be manufactured in France. BNG is under something of a cloud with the Japanese power industry after it was found that workers had skipped quality control tests on some MOX fuel sent to Japan in 1999 for use in a reactor in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture. The fuel was never loaded.

It was to have been Japan's first large-scale use of foreign MOX. Other scares have delayed Japan's plans to use MOX, but there are plans to have 18 reactors using MOX by 2010.

Insiders believe BNG will be chosen to manufacture MOX for Japan some time after 2010. This is expected to be after MOX manufactured in France and Belgium has been loaded into Japanese reactors.

The MOX when loaded into reactors produces thermal energy which when mixed with water produces steam in order to drive turbines and produce electricity.