Send the Plutonium Back to Japan
by David Archibald
23 November 2024
In 1993, 330 kg of weapons-grade plutonium was sent from the UK to Japan to help them start their plutonium breeder reactor program. That program was cut short but the weapons-grade plutonium stayed. Weapons-grade plutonium has under 7% Pu240 with the balance being Pu239. Pu240 has a high rate of spontaneous fission which means that bombs made with too much of it tend to explode early and produce a fizzle*. Commercial reactors designed for making electric power produce plutonium with a Pu240 content of about 20% by the time the fuel rods are switched out, making it useless for nuclear weapons. President Carter banned reprocessing of nuclear fuel to stop nuclear proliferation. He need not have bothered.
Making a bomb using 6 kg of plutonium will give you a yield of 20 kilotons with that doubling to 40 kilotons using a tritium booster. A further increase in yield would be achieved by adding a uranium tamper. So, that 330 kg of weapons-grade plutonium that Japan had would be good for 55 warheads of at least 40 kilotons each.
That is the past tense because China made itself upset over Japan being in possession of weapons-grade plutonium that would help Japan defend itself against Chinese aggression. So China prevailed upon the Obama regime to get Japan to send that parcel of plutonium back, which happened in 2016. Which is ironic because China is now expanding its nuclear arsenal at least five-fold, from 300 warheads to beyond 1,500. China is building two breeder reactors to make weapons-grade plutonium on Changbiao Island, Fujian Province to that end.
Weapons-grade plutonium breeder reactors on Changbiao Island, Fujian Province (image Google Earth).
In July 2021, China threatened to nuke one Japanese city per day if Japan comes to the aid of Taiwan. Japan sees Chinese control of Taiwan as an existential threat and will come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacks. The United States is not committed by treaty to defend Taiwan but it does have a treaty commitment to defend Japan if that country is attacked. With the consequence that if China does attack Taiwan, the United States will become involved or have all of its treaties rendered worthless. Obama did all he could to make the United States weaker and making Japan send the plutonium back contributed to that. So that a future President could weasel out of defending Japan because it was too difficult.
Unfortunately the Biden regime spend the last three years signalling that it was afraid of nuclear escalation, which just means that a nuclear-armed enemy will threaten to go nuclear at the first opportunity. To head that off, the new Trump administration needs to signal some resolve. The cheapest and fastest way of doing that would be to send that plutonium back to Japan. And lend them some warheads until they have made their own. That would complicate China’s war planning, help stop them from going nuclear, and may prevent a war over Taiwan in the first place. As the Russians say, escalate to de-escalate.
* Operation Vesta in 1958 produced a yield of 24 tons.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.