What to do with spent fuel? Ending reprocessing and a new approach to the management of Japan's spent fuel and plutonium

To break away from Japan's 'failed' operation of Rokkasho Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Plant, the authors make several proposals: The Japanese government should convince prefectural and local government that host Japan's nuclear power plants to allow on-site-dry-cask storage of the spent fuels in their plant sites. The Rokkasho reprocessing plant also should accept spent fuels from the nuclear power plants for process and storage. Japan should abandon the idea of MOX fuel utilization. Japanese government should take the responsibility for 44 tons of already separated plutonium of which there is no path toward disposal. (S. Ohno)