Japan 'loses' 206kg of plutonium

The Financial Times ^ | January 28, 2003 | Bayan Rahman

[AmericanInTokyo]

The ever-perceptive "Dane", yes, indeed. Welcome back.

As you know, your comments are quite accurate regarding pachinko in Japan and the North Korean connection and how it is essentially legalized gambling.

It is another in a long string of what, in Japan, is on the surface not necessarily what is below the surface in reality. Laws and their actual ENFORCEMENT are much that way over in Japan. Particularly, for example, (not even mentioning prostitution) in Japanese construction where on the surface the domestic criminal law outlaws bid rigging and cartels (so the Japan Foreign Ministry can tell the Americans they are doing everything by the book and all laws are in place), and yet under the surface there is hardly a construction project in Japan that is not rigged with the influence of Yakuza, who also work ferociously to knock out any US competitors that try the hardest and sincerest to get in the market here, to no avail. US free traders who havent worked in the field, then altruistically and naively yell that "American firms over there are crybabies" and "they don't try", when the fact of the matter is due to their blindness they (the well-meaning yet uninitiated) cannot see the surface (everything is in legal harmony) is actually quite completely a odds with what the true, deeper state of things are and what is really going on behind the scenes.

A true dichotomy of theory vs. praxis, of perceptions and realities. Pachinko, prostitution, construction are very good examples.

[AdamSelene235]

If dispersed into a fine powder, it'll kill anyone who inhales it...

So will a number of things that are 10^6 times cheaper than plutonium.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Actually, Mr. Dane is quite correct in his observations.

The Pachinko industry in Japan is, for all intents and purposes, strongly controlled by the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in alliance with both Japanse boryokudan and Korean-ethnic (i.e. North Korean) underworld entities in Japan. I know the money route quite well.

By the way, you might also be interested to know the North Korean mafia is also quite active in the northern border area of DPRK, along the Chinese border, running all kinds of scams: black markets, smuggling, bribery to get people out into China, flesh trade brokering, etc. It's all true, believe me.

[anymouse]

Maybe the Japanese strategic planners read Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honer" and figured it wouldn't hurt to have a few undeclared nukes ready to go just in case North Korea or China tried the nuclear blackmail game.

[Rain-maker]

You wonder how come the security is so lax on a highly dangerous element.

Maybe too much Duff beer at work?

[LibKill]

The missing plutonium? Mice ate it.

[genefromjersey]

I've read Japan has had a secret bomb program for decades. This suggests there might be some truth to the assertion...

[AmericanInTokyo]

Regarding this important debate, please keep in mind the larger, important points I've made in my #61 here tonight about Japan.

[a_Turk]

First and foremost, what business did they have making any plutonium?

[Shermy]

I think they import it from Europe for their nuclear breeder reactors. Or so I read.

[SauronOfMordor]

206 kilos might fit in a gym bag.

At a specific gravity of 19.8 (19.8 times the density of water), 206 kilos occupy 10.4 liters of space. Think of 5 2-liter soda bottles

[The Duke]

Hell will freeze over before Japan sells plutonium to North Korea or China. However, it's easy to imagine Japan having their own covert nuclear program (and it's probably a wise decision on their part).

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Well, as Art Buchwald said when he got his Gold Visa Card upgraded to a Platinum card: There's only one thing that beats Platinum, and that's PLUTONIUM!!

[MadIvan]

Oh I don't think Japan would sell plutonium to North Korea or a rogue state. I don't think that at all - what I do think is that it may have been pilfered.

Regards, Ivan

[Happygal]

Does this guy work in Japan's plutonium units?

[xm177e2]

450 pounds of the stuff... that's a lot.

[WoofDog123]

"A cynic might think that there's not really any missing plutonium at all, and that the announcement serves to make a different point."

Cynic is goodspeak for anyone who dares to doubt the public proclamations of a government (provided that government isn't currently listed as a member of the axis of evil, during which time all of its public statements are lies and no proof is required to call them so). Cynic replaces the word Realist in this context.

I don't doubt this might be a public message on what japan can presumably put together nuke-wise in a very very short time.

[Ronin]

Give that man a cee-gar.

[maestro]

Your#8)..........................bttt

I've never understood how a person loses this stuff?

Simple,......inventory 'management'.

It is in various 'special-for-future-use' wharehouses.

IMHO

[mvpel]

I thought the rods were uranium and that a special refinement process had to take place to extract the plutonium. Is it easier to refine these spent rods and then store them? Plutonium is very dangerous even in small amounts, tons of it on a small island with a history of earthquakes would seem a disproportionate risk.

The wonders of modern technology, eh?

Separating plutonium, uranium, and other products from spent fuel rods is a matter of basic chemistry - the different elements involve themselves in different chemical bonds and can be separated out that way, much like you'd precipitate iron out of a solution by adding the right chemicals.

The rods are left to cool for a number of months, then dissolved in acid under heavily shielded conditions. The various elements involved are then sorted out by chemical processes - I think one of them involves UF₆, uranium-hexaflouride.

There is still vast amounts of potential energy in the "spent" fuel from a nuclear reactor, and the US policy of simply pitching it is like building a campfire with a big thick log, and disposing of the log when the outside bark is charred.