14 DAY TRIAL // This Monday, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went public with the news that Japan was to soon say goodbye to part of its nuclear material stockpile.
More precisely, President Obama and the Prime Minister announced that Japan was to turn over some of the nuclear material it currently accommodates for to the United States.
All in all, the United States is expected to receive some 700 pounds (almost 318 kilograms) of nuclear material in the not too distant future, The Hill informs.
Once the weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium enter its territory, the United States is to ensure that the nuclear material is downgraded and properly disposed of.
Speaking at an international summit in The Hague, President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe explained that the move was intended to promote global nuclear security.
They further detailed that the nuclear material was to be transferred from the Fast Critical Assembly at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, where it had until now been kept for researcher purposes.
“Today in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the occasion of the third Nuclear Security Summit, Prime Minister Abe and President Obama pledged to remove and dispose all highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium from the Fast Critical Assembly (FCA) at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Japan.”
“This material, once securely transported to the United States, will be sent to a secure facility and fully converted into less sensitive forms,” President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a joint statement.
By taking steps towards reducing the world's stockpile of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, the United States and Japan expect to put a dent into some people's, i.e. criminal and terrorists, plans to get their hands on such materials.
As President Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put it, “This effort involves the elimination of hundreds of kilograms of nuclear material, furthering our mutual goal of minimizing stocks of HEU and separated plutonium worldwide, which will help prevent unauthorized actors, criminals, or terrorists from acquiring such materials.”
Apart from turning over these over 700 pounds (roughly 318 kilograms) of sensitive nuclear material to the United States, Japan is to convert its Fast Critical Assembly facility in such ways that research projects can still be carried out without the need to use highly enriched uranium.
The trouble is that, according to media report, Japan currently accommodates for a nuclear material stockpile amounting to over nine tons. Otherwise put, the quantity it has agreed to turn over to the United States is only a fraction of the total nuclear material that it must deal with.