Japan’s growing plutonium stockpile fuels fears

As said many times in the past, Japan can go nuclear within three months if it wishes. It’s already secretly working on them. The necessary materials are there and only assembly is required. All that’s needed is a catalyst.

Although it may be a farce, like the last 10-plus times it has committed to denuclearization, North Korea has slowed down the need. China at the moment is the flashpoint since it also controls North Korea, and is projecting its power throughout the Asia-Pacific and eventually into the Western Pacific.

 

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Japan has amassed enough plutonium to make 6,000 atomic bombs as part of a programme to fuel its nuclear plants, but concern is growing that the stockpile is vulnerable to terrorists and natural disasters.

Japan has long been the world’s only non-nuclear-armed country with a programme to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from its power plants into plutonium.

U.S. government plutonium stolen out of truck never recovered: Report

How is it that radioactive weapons grade plutonium went missing from a government truck at such an opportune time?

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (INTELLIHUB) — It’s not the first time that U.S. plutonium has gone missing but more than a year later the radioactive material which can be used to make a dirty bomb has not been recovered, according to a new report.

ALERT: Officials warn of more collapses at US nuclear site — “High spikes” in radiation levels recorded — Expert: Plutonium could go airborne — Major concern over radioactive releases — Gov’t delays revealing data to public (VIDEOS)

KING 5 transcript, May 14, 2017 (emphasis added): Hanford official: Tunnel could collapse again — Less than a week after a tunnel collapse at Hanford’s PUREX site, Senator Cantwell visited the nuclear site Saturday, concerned about the recent collapse and the possibility of more. “There is still a potential that we could have an additional collapse of that tunnel,” said Doug Shoop, manager at the Department of Energy Richland Operations Office… “What we will be doing, weather permitting, will be putting a very large cover over the top of that tunnel number one,” said Shoop. That cover meant to keep radioactive particles in the dirt from flying into the air in the event of another collapse.

Russia Out On Plutonium Deal with the US

The lower house of the Russian parliament on Wednesday approved President Vladimir Putin’s decree on suspending a plutonium accord with the United States, Russian news agencies reported.

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(MOSCOW) – The Kremlin said it was taking that action in response to unfriendly acts by Washington. It made the announcement shortly before Washington said it was suspending talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria.

Minutes to midnight: US cuts bilateral contact with Russia

 

Following Russia’s decree to end their joint nuclear deweaponization program with the US, the US State Department announced Monday that Washington has suspended bilateral contact with Moscow.

(VERO BEACH, FL) America has “suspended” bilateral contacts with Russia over the Syrian crisis, the US State Department said.

Meanwhile in Siberia: Chinese planes overfly top secret nuke facility

Four Chinese airplanes operated by the Chinese civil aviation authorities penetrated deep into Russia’s airspace on July 24.

The planes flew over the forbidden city of Severst where the ultra-secret Siberian Chemical Combine is located, according to various Russian media reports.

Coming Soon: Nuclear Terror?

Terrorist groups are more capable than ever. The unthinkable could already be unavoidable.

Since 9/11 the world has become used to periodic warnings about nuclear terrorism. We don’t like to think about it, and it has become easy to dismiss. People have been talking about this for years and it’s not happened, we reason.

After all, conducting a nuclear attack is hard. But the world is just waking up to the fact that it is faced with attack from terrorist groups of unprecedented strength.

Nuclear Expert in Japan: Plutonium “is everywhere… it is everywhere” after Fukushima reactors exploded — It’s being redeposited in “unanticipated” locations — “Black radioactive dust just wherever you go” — “It’s running right into Pacific Ocean” (VIDEO)

 

 

Excerpts from interview with Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds’ chief engineer and former nuclear engineer during speaking tour in Japan, Feb 17, 2016 (at 2:30 in):

 

Tracing the origin of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program

SEOUL – The godfathers of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program were an elderly trio: a nuclear physicist, a military general and a broker with contacts in Pakistan.

The broker is reported to have died in 2014, but together, the three helped lay the groundwork that led to the isolated country’s fourth nuclear test on Wednesday.

Roughly 6,000 people are involved in North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, according to a 2009 report by South Korea’s Science & Technology Policy Institute, and they are an elite corps. Many are given brand new houses and those at the very top are awarded medals listing them as heroes of the state.

As Predicted, the Iran Deal Has Begun to Wreck Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Efforts

Amid growing indications that Iran does not plan to comply with the July nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), there is a new report that the huge U.S. concessions offered to Tehran to get this agreement are already undermining global efforts against nuclear proliferation.

One of the most significant of these concessions allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium even while the JCPOA is in effect. This contradicts years of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt all uranium enrichment, and previous U.S. policies that have strongly discouraged nations from beginning peaceful uranium-enrichment programs due to the ease with which they can be used to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

North Korea says it has restarted all nuclear bomb fuel plants

Announcement comes day after Pyongyang said it is ready to launch ‘satellites’ on long-range rockets

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after threatening rocket launches, North Korea declared Tuesday that it has revamped and restarted all its atomic bomb fuel production plants.

The back-to-back announcements, which many outside analysts consider threats designed to spur talks with the United States that could eventually provide impoverished North Korea with concessions, will push Pyongyang further toward a standoff with Washington and its allies.

Proposed Deal with Iran Not Legal; Iranian Nukes in South America

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbids any of its signatories to have nuclear weapons. Full stop.

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Why is the international community not simply enforcing the current NPT?

Japan secretly developing nuclear weapons: Yazhou Zhoukan

So long as the United States continues suiciding itself out of existence and becoming increasingly unreliable in the eyes of its allies, expect countries with the capability such as Japan to rise up as they are left with no choice. They have the means for ‘breakout capacity’ and can go nuclear within months.

The Hong Kong-based Yazhou Zhoukan reports that Japan is secretly developing a nuclear weapons program in anticipation of a potential crisis over the Diaoyutai (Diaoyu or Senkaku) islands in the East China Sea.

Japan is currently the only nation in the world which has a complete nuclear industry. Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Toshiba are the three largest Japanese companies which produce nuclear energy. Under those three corporations, there are an additional 200 smaller firms which possess nuclear fuel or who have the know-how to handle plutonium.

Iran’s Dual Path to Nuclear Arms

Plutonium versus uranium: A very keen observation that many have failed to distinguish. Many forget that these are two variants that can help Iran achieve the same goal: Nuclear weapons. The Iranians know how to exploit the naïveté and continue to laugh off sanctions and diplomacy. As the article points out, the world might shortly find itself more concerned about how to contain the King of the South in the medium-term rather than halting it. Either way, whether it’s now, soon or later… war is eventually on the horizon.

Iran has two options: uranium or plutonium bombs.

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The talks were fruitless. The Iranians are too far along to stop now. Look at the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons in the past. No amount of sanctions can stop them. When Iran has stopped its work in the past it has only been temporary, or a flat-out lie. Europe was pushing Iran to stop centrifuge-based uranium enrichment back in 2003. The Iranians seemed compliant, yet they continued developing the technology, if not the enrichment. We are 10 years on and Iran has the technology. If it stops uranium enrichment, it will have another option, as it did back in 2003.

The heavy-water plant can be used to create plutonium. If Iran stops producing uranium, it can turn its attention to plutonium.

India Eyes Nuclear Triad

“India’s drive to develop a nuclear triad proceeds apace,” write Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris in India’s entry in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ 2012 Nuclear Notebook.

Like most nuclear-armed countries, New Delhi maintains a certain degree of opacity about the size of its nuclear arsenal making it difficult to pinpoint. Thus, while estimating that India has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for 100-130 nuclear warheads, Kristensen and Norris believe that it has only produce 80-100 of them. This may increase in the future, however, as India enhances its ability to produce plutonium, and increases its delivery systems.

Full article: India Eyes Nuclear Triad (The Diplomat)