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The Asahi Shimbun
A consortium of electric power companies that envisaged Japan operating on a network of nuclear reactors using pluthermal generation technology is having to drastically scale back that ambitious goal.
Years ago, pluthermal energy was viewed as a dream way for Japan to generate electricity with nuclear power plants using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.
The beauty of the technology is that MOX fuel is created by recycling plutonium processed out of spent nuclear fuel.
The first pluthermal plan compiled in 1997 set a goal of building 16 to 18 nuclear reactors using MOX fuel by fiscal 2010.
Currently, four reactors in Japan use the fuel.