Dbbh aa 11 um -- -- HOII - un- - vusumx cup i -- THE WHITE HOUSE 4 2 55 193 2 5 5 4 MESSAGE NO 2L CLASSIFICATION N6 PAGES mm Ertangian noon numb HBSSAGE DESCRIPTION T0 Agenczl DELIVER m Dept Room No Extenmon a north - G-ru-d Smith Wat-urg- 1h hp-rm of State noon 6333 lemon-x 632-3152 vith eh tolls-in mugs Plum tel-guano no attached with DECLASSIFIED Authority '7 SUBJECT Japanese ReprotessingtU A recent HOBIS cable from Embassy Tokyo reports that the prestigious Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute has completed a draft report which concludes that 5 -- Thermal recycle recycling plutonium in the current generation of light water reactors is not attractive and should not be pursued in the near term -- Japan should not build a large new reprocessing facility - The small reprocessing plant at Tokai-Mura can supply all of Japan's foreseeable plutonium needs for RID on breeders and advanced reactors -- Plutonium recovered from Japanese spent fuel repro cessed in France and the UK would be excess and should be sold to those countries 5 The draft report is being reviewed by a high-level group including the Japanese Foreign Office the Ministry of Industry the Science and Technology Agency the Atomic Energy Commission and Japanese industry Except for two industrialists all of these organizations have agreed in principle with the above conclusions It stands a good chance of becoming the basis of official Japanese policy whether openly acknowledged or not 5 This is something of a bembshell Following recent private Japanese projections that their installed nuclear capacity will be one half of recent official projections it provides the most impressive confirmation we have yet seen of the basic premises underlying the President's 1977 policies that the need for large scale reprocessing and commercial use of plutonium remains distant and uncertain that commitments to those technologies are uneconomic and that this is true even for countries as energy-dependent as Japan C Review 8 22 36                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000  Fax  202 994‐7005  nsarchiv@gwu edu