Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant

The Rokkasho Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facility (六ヶ所村核燃料再処理施設, Rokkasho Kakunenryō Saishori Shisetsu^?) is a nuclear reprocessing plant with an annual capacity of 800 tons of uranium or 8 tons of plutonium. It is owned by Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL) and is part of the Rokkasho complex located in the village of Rokkasho in northeast Aomori Prefecture, on the Pacific coast of the northernmost part of Japan's main island of Honshu.

Construction and testing of the facility were complete in 2013 according to JNFL, and the site was intended to begin operating in October 2013; however this was delayed by new safety regulations. In December 2013 JNFL announced the plant would be ready for operation in October 2014. In 2015, the start of the reprocessing plant was postponed again, this time to as late as September 2018.

The Rokkasho plant is the successor to a smaller reprocessing plant located in Tōkai, Ibaraki in central Japan, which ceased operation in 2007.

The Rokkasho facilities complex includes:

In 2010, the Rokkasho complex consisted of 38 buildings on an area of 3,800,000 m².

Vitrification tests completed in November 2007. This consists of pouring high level dry waste reside along with molten glass into steel canisters.

Since 1993 there has been US$ 20 billion invested in the project, nearly triple the original cost estimate. A 2011 estimate put the cost at US$27.5 billion.

In May 2006, an international awareness campaign about the dangers of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, Stop Rokkasho, was launched by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. Greenpeace has opposed the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant under a campaign called "Wings of Peace – No more Hiroshima Nagasaki", since 2002 and has launched a cyberaction to stop the project. Consumers Union of Japan together with 596 organisations and groups participated in a parade on 27 January 2008 in central Tokyo against the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Over 810,000 signatures were collected and handed in to the government on 28 January 2008. Representatives of the protesters, which include fishery associations, consumer cooperatives and surfer groups, handed the petition to the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

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