 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. A little bit of time for the Board of the Arms Control Association. Bill, those of you who are still eating, please feel very free to continue eating. I already introduced myself earlier. My name is James Acton. I'm co-director of the New Clip Policy Program here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This is the second panel on today's discussion. Our focus is on a very different area of nuclear security in Northeast Asia, in particular the stockpiling of plutonium as part of civilian nuclear energy programs to give an extraordinarily brief and necessarily partial recap. At the time when Japan was starting its civil nuclear energy program, really conceptualizing it in the 1950s, the United States was the model for Japan. And at that time, the United States intended to reprocess. That is to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel for the purposes of producing more nuclear fuel out of it. In the subsequent 60 years, the US has now ceased its policy of reprocessing for domestic purposes. But Japan has pursued that policy. Now more recently, South Korea has an interest in a technology called pyro-processing. And China within the region also has an interest in reprocessing. North Korea does as well, but that's very clearly not for civilian purposes. And so we're going to ground rule North Korea out of the discussion today. To help me analyze these issues, I'm thrilled to be joined by four exceptionally insightful knowledgeable panelists. Starting on my immediate left is Tom Countryman, who is currently the chair of the Board of Directors at the Arms Control Association. Before that, Tom had a long storied career in the US Foreign Service, culminating as assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation, and also acting under secretary of state for arms control and international security. To his left is Vic Rees, another distinguished US government veteran. Someone who's also had a long and storied career. In Vic's case, particularly at the US Department of Energy, where he served, amongst other roles, as the assistant secretary for defense program, Vic is deeply associated with many aspects of this country's nuclear policies and programs, including science-based stockpiles stewardship, and particularly relevant for today's discussion, GNAP, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. To Vic's left, we have Sharon Squisoning. We're enormously thrilled to have Sharon here today. Those of you who saw an earlier version of the agenda may know we was due to have a South Korean academic, Se Yong Jang, come in to speak. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented her from being able to attend, but Sharon jumped in at the last minute. We couldn't possibly ask for a better replacement. Sharon is currently a research professor of practice at the Institute for International Science and Technology at George Washington's University Elliott School of International Affairs. Sharon has had, again, numerous jobs around Washington, Congressional Research Service, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and also the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sharon was here when I first arrived. And finally, to her left is Tatsu Suzuki, who's currently director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University. He is also a former vice chair of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission. I want to divide the discussion with the panelists today into two parts. I briefly want to look at the nature of the challenge we face with plutonium stockpiling. How much of this is a problem, both from regional perspectives and from the US perspective? Then the second part of the discussion, I want it to be a more forward-looking part of the discussion focusing on policy solutions. What do we, the US, Japan, South Korea, the international community, collectively do about this problem? So in my first round of questions, I just asked people, so let's just initially focus on the problem, and then the second round we can start to discuss solutions and way forwards more. Tatsu, let me start with you in the first case. We're coming up now for the seventh anniversary after the Fukushima accident. Great. Japan is facing problems restarting its reactor fleet that is intended in part to burn plutonium. It's also facing challenges restarting Rokasha reprocessing plant, which is intended to produce plutonium. Could you give us a brief rundown of where Japan is right now in terms of its plutonium stockpiling, in terms of its efforts to burn those, that plutonium stockpiling produced more plutonium in the future? Thank you, Jim. Thank you for the opportunity. Let me start with the good news. Good news is that Japan's plutonium stockpile absorbed today is 46.8 tons, will not grow at least, until at least 2021, because just the Japan nuclear field limited announced its decision to postpone the operation of Rokasha until 2021. So there will be no substantial increase over plutonium stockpiling in Japan. Merck's plans is also, operation is postponed another time to 2022. So this, but this postponement is not the result of the policy change. So the bad news is that Japan's commitment to reprocessing continues. And in fact, it's cemented by the fact that the parliament passed a law, 2015, and so-called the nuclear reprocessing fund law, which requires utilities to submit every year the fees for the reprocessing of all spent fields generated in the previous year. So then they established a new organization called Neuro, nuclear reprocessing organization, which is similar to the called NUMO, Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is saving governmental organization under the control of the government. And the new law has to submit every year, not every year, nuclear, Neuro needs to submit the plan. So for midterm reprocessing plan to METI and the METI minister needs to approve the plan. But under the law, they didn't say anything about the plutonium balance. But thanks to the parliamentary debate, now they have a so-called additional resolution attached to the law, says that the METI minister has to consider plutonium balance when they give approval of the reprocessing plan. And so at this moment, and there's no, of course, no plan from Neuro, and but eventually the government has to face the midterm reprocessing plan, how this reprocessing plan will consider the plutonium supply demand balance. So this is the second point I'd like to make. Third point I'd like to make is, as Jim said, that they're still very uncertain about the future of nuclear energy in Japan. As of today, only four reactors operating, and two of them only use mocks. And it is likely that two more reactors, Genkai three and four, will be operating soon, which burns also mocks. But at this moment, only four reactors. Another two more reactors, Kashiwazekarua, the first BWR get a license may burn also mocks, but it is unlikely that they will get approval of local government to start operation. So in the next few years, the number of reactors to burn plutonium is not, again, is not increasing. It's only a four or five. So Meti currently reviewing the new national nuclear, national energy strategy, which will be published this summer. But at this moment, it's not clear how this the role of nuclear in the entire energy mix will be determined. So the point here also is very important that the public trust, because of the accident, has been lost and has been recovered yet. The final act to make some slight hope of change of Japanese government policy. Japan Atomic Energy Commission, just on the January 16th, just a month ago, suggested that they will review the plutonium, no plutonium surplus policy because they are saying that the current so-called no surplus policy is not working very well. And the possible change could be two things. One is to change the reprocessing policy to similar to the French one, which means that the only process only when the demand is specified. The second possible change, which they suggested, is there are small amount of R&D, small amount of plutonium stockpile in the Toka area for R&D purposes, and which doesn't have any specific use. So they are suggesting that that small amount of plutonium should be, that they end with should be specified, or otherwise they may suggest that could be disposed. This is another possible change in the Japanese reprocessing and plutonium policy. So finally I'd like to raise the issue of international cooperation. The Japan-U.S. bilateral agreement now is likely to be, now it's going to be extended without any change. However, the issue remains, so I'd like to suggest that the U.S.-Japan bilateral cooperation on this plutonium stockpile issue could be very important. It's a good opportunity because now we have three years of window because Rokkashi will not operate in the next three years to collaborate how to reduce the plutonium stockpile and also how to manage the plutonium issue jointly together for the future plan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tatsu. Sharon, let me turn to you next. Can you give us a rundown, as I mentioned in my introductory mark, South Korea is interested in following a similar route to Japan, albeit with a quite different kind of reprocessing technology in the form of pyro-processing technology. Can you give a rundown on A, what's driving South Korea down this route and B, where does it stand now? How do you assess the prospects for its pyro-processing program? Sure, thank you, James. So for those of you who might be familiar with my views on South Korean pyro-processing, I'm afraid I'm probably not gonna be a great substitute for Seyoon Jung. However, I'm gonna try and lay out for you what some of the reasons that South Korea has given for pursuing pyro-processing. Let me start out. This looks kind of like a very expert audience, but in case there are those of you for whom pyro-processing is not an everyday term, South Korea's situation is very different from Japan. They only have plutonium in spent fuel. Part of that is because the U.S.-Korean nuclear cooperation agreement has never allowed them to reprocess. This pyro-processing, without getting too technical on you, it's different from the Purex process. It's a dry process, electro-metallurgical, and the plutonium is not, while it's separated from the uranium, it's not separated from the fission products. And this has, there's a wild debate in the technical community over how proliferation-resistant pyro-processing is. We're not gonna solve that here for you today, but let it suffice to say that when the U.S.-South Korean nuclear cooperation agreement needed to be renewed a few years ago, what transpired was a kind of compromise position in which South Korea and the U.S. would conduct a 10-year-long technical, and not just technical, but a project to look at the technical, political, and economic and proliferation considerations connected with pyro-processing and revisit the issue later. So it left the door open slightly. The other thing about that agreement is that it only has a 20-year duration. So we reached agreement in 2015. It'll go till 2035, and there's a high-level bilateral commission that, which is an opportunity for South Korea to discuss with the U.S. the prospects for gaining consent for them to pyro-process U.S. origin fuel. It also left the door open a little bit for uranium enrichment. So these things are still in play. Let me just to the technical reasons why South Korea has wanted pyro-processing. I would say they'd love to do reprocessing, but that has obviously not been something the U.S. has wanted to consider. Standard arguments, right? They want to solve the spent fuel problem. Spent fuel creates a lot of different problems. One is public acceptance. And so going to the public and saying, yes, we have a plan to deal with spent fuel. We're going to reduce the volume. We're going to reduce the toxicity. It's all going to be through this wonderful process called pyro-processing. Helps them deal with some of the public acceptance issues. You may know that there have been actually kind of big demonstrations in South Korea over that. On the space, reducing the volume, that's another big technical debate. You may reduce the volume, but you might not reduce the heat. And actually the size of the repository that you need is very dependent on the heat. Simply engaging in pyro-processing allows you to put some of these decisions off. I would say that's not a wise idea. Every country that operates nuclear power reactors unless we come up with, and which I perfectly hope for, a multilateral storage solution, every country will need to find some way to dispose of spent fuel or waste in the future. So you're only delaying. In reducing the toxicity, South Korea has said that what it wants to do is to store the most radioactive elements, cesium-137 and strontium-90, above ground for 200 to 300 years. And then they'll take the transuranic nuclides and recycle them through fast reactors. And so over time you can reduce the toxicity that way. So what are the challenges? Practicality, cost, timing, these are fairly significant ones. Not to mention the fact that no country yet has a commercially operating fast reactor. And so other people have done the technical calculations, but most notably Jungman-Kang, who is now on the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission and Frank von Hippel have estimated that even if South Korea shut down all its light-water reactors now, it has 24 of them, it would take these fast reactors 100 years to go through all of that fuel. Next, just briefly, because I know I'm taking time here, the prospects for this. So we're at a strength, if you had asked me three years ago, will South Korea at some point do uranium enrichment and pyro-processing? I would have said, oh yeah, they're very dedicated, they've spent decades working on this. In a lot of ways, pyro-processing is kind of a cool technology. But now we have Moon Jae-in in power and some have called him anti-nuclear. He said that he ultimately wants to phase out nuclear energy. I'm not sure what that means in this day and age, and I would have said, look, South Korean president, they're limited to one term, five years. He'll never be able to overturn the nuclear bureaucracy in South Korea in that amount of time. However, there is, I hear, plans to change the terms of the presidency to go to a four-year term and allow for multiple terms. There is some recently, some more debate, I would say, on pyro-processing, the National Assembly has put together a commission of experts to look at pyro-processing, that study is supposed to be out shortly. That funding for these efforts, which are all in the future, right? The sodium fast reactor wouldn't be deployed until 2028 and a pilot plan for pyro-processing, not until 2025, but that this funding for the R&D and engineering maybe slash. So bottom line is very uncertain. However, South Korea has invested a lot in its nuclear energy. It is now an exporter of nuclear power plants and an advanced nuclear state. So my bottom line is, I guess, stay tuned for what will happen. Thanks, Sharon. I wanna put the same question next to both Tom and Vic, which is, from a US perspective, how much should we worry about reprocessing programs in Asia, particularly because of the risk of stockpiling plutonium? And I do wanna sharpen this question slightly. Obviously, it's very easy to pay to agree that stockpiling plutonium is bad. We don't like it. But how much of a priority should that be relative to other foreign policy goals? Is this something where, especially with countries like Japan that we trust and have a close relationship with, we shouldn't particularly, we don't like it if they stockpiled plutonium. It shouldn't, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of it. Or should this be a real foreign policy priority for us in restraining these plutonium stockpiles? Let me go first with Vic and then come to Tom. So let me be clear in terms of answering the question. One, any separated plutonium, wherever it is, is a risk. All right, because it can be made into a nuclear explosive, period. And that's true in anywhere in the world. So the key, in fact, in the wrong hands, that's a terrible security risk. I mean, it's hard to think of anything worse than that. But the idea is, okay, is the, and let's look at Japan, it's amazing. So protecting that is a high priority. On the other hand, over the past some years, almost since we've been working together, are working with, and again, I'm sort of out of this business somewhat since I retired, but I checked with my friends recently. And the cooperation and the working with the Japanese, it's really excellent. And they've done a terrific job of securing their, okay, so I couldn't, by the way, I can't help but notice Steve Aoki is here in the audience and he worked very hard with his Japanese colleagues to basically make that happen. And I know people who are buried in the bureaucracy somehow rather rarely get credit for what they're doing. So I wanna give Steve a lot of credit for making that. And that's really a salubrious result of what he has done both in the State Department and in the DEA League. So there's no question that that's a problem. But I think, frankly, as long as we can keep that going, and I see no reason why that there should be, I don't see that, frankly, as that higher priority. It's working. There are other issues which we can, I assume we'll get an opportunity to discuss, which I think over the long term, but certainly over the next, I don't know, five, 10, or whatever years that one government lasts and so forth. And so I don't see any pushback in terms of both what our government and what the Japanese government is doing that could, why that should be that high a priority since things are working. Tom, you've expressed, while serving as acting undersecretary, and since leaving the State Department, more concern about Japan's plutonium program and its stockpiling. How do you respond to, let me give you the chance to respond to Vick. Well, the concerns go beyond nuclear security, which I think Vick explained well, and I echo his praise of Steve Aoki for fantastic work with the Japanese. The only thing I worry about there is complacency as the U.S. Nuclear Security Establishment constantly reminds itself we have to stay on top of this and I trust the Japanese to do the same. But that's not the only international nonproliferation issue associated with owning a lot of plutonium. I do not worry that the Japanese will be tempted in the future to use this enormous stockpile, more than 10,000 weapons worth, to build nuclear weapons. Public sentiment in Japan is so strongly opposed to that, and the IAEA keeps very tight control over it. The problem is not all of Japan's neighbors have as a beneficent of view of the Japanese government as I do, and there are concerns in China and in the Republic of Korea that the Japanese will be tempted in that direction in the future. Now, you can break that down in order to worry a little bit less. I mean, the Chinese attack Japan and its plutonium stockpile for the same reason that Russia attacks American democracy because it's easy to do, it's easy to score points, and hypocrisy has no cost. The ROK is a little bit more complex, has became clear as I negotiated the 1-2-3 agreement with ROK. An important reason for their desire to have prior consent for reprocessing, whether it's called pyro-processing or not, is a perceived competition in prestige with Japan, and that was an important factor that we had to deal with in those negotiations. I worry a little more about ROK having a desire to have a hedge for future use of nuclear or development of nuclear weapons for some objective reasons. First, they've tried it twice before covertly. Second, there's much stronger public opinion and public support in favor of an independent nuclear weapons capability in ROK than Japan. So to have the Japanese stockpile out there as not just a something that I think very incorrectly is viewed as prestigious, that plutonium is anything but prestigious. It's nasty crap that you gotta spend a lot of money to get rid of, but it will be out there as a temptation for the ROK and as a sitting duck target for Chinese propaganda, and that's not helpful. And so the final point about the damage done, the United States in all its efforts in non-proliferation over the last 60 years has had no partner that's been more consistent and important than Japan. In every forum, whether it's negotiating the NPT, whether it's the UN, whether it's the IAEA, Japan is a crucial partner for US policy. And Japan unfortunately sees its credibility eroded as it sits atop this giant stockpile. So for all those reasons, I think it needs to be a foreign policy priority of the United States, not to change the 123, not to dictate to Japan its choice of energy policy, but to engage in those steps that reduce risk, that reassure neighbors and that promote consistency of Japanese policy with Japanese proclaimed standards in non-proliferation. That's why the US has to be involved. Vic, you were so admirably brief in your opening remarks. I just want to give you a quick opportunity to respond to Tom. I think the two of you have agreed that the problem, in your opinions, is not that Japan is going to go and build nuclear weapons. Tom, I think just to paraphrase him briefly, sees the problem as the international reactions primarily to Japan's plutonium stockpile, particularly from China and South Korea. And personally, I would add to that that it sets a bad precedent, but other countries we might worry about more could cite Japan as a precedent for why it's okay to stockpile large quantities of weapons usable fissile material. Let me give you a chance to respond to that particular critique of plutonium stockpiling. Yeah. No, I don't, I mean, I was just looking at it from a narrow perspective. Is this stuff really, you know, dangerous? Yes. Are we taking care of it in a appropriate, sort of technical way? Yes, I think that was the way I answered the question. I didn't want to take it into the, basically into the wrong policy regime, but if you look at all the nuclear things that we are faced with, is this the most important, or is this something that would say, hey, we're working on this, is that the highest in my perspective? Again, I don't want to argue with the expert. That's the only thing. I just don't think that's as high a priority as some of the other things that we'd like to deal with. I also think, frankly, we have that met, you know, there are a lot of problems ourselves that I would say would be an interesting priority. You, and let me wedge my way in here, because you mentioned the global nuclear energy process, which we programed, which we started a few years ago, about 10 years ago. And it was, I'm writing my memoirs now. So that's when I clues in the miserable failure approach. And, you know, why was that? You know, we started, we, certainly President Bush was really quite sincere in wanting to get something going. But why, and indeed, what was it and why did that fail? And it basically, and it wasn't international, it was a global program. And it was based on the idea that if you looked at places like Japan, France, UK, Russia, China, they were all engaged in some type of fast reactors, reprocessing and so forth. And everybody said, hey, we're all going in different directions. Is there any way, at least on the R&D perspective, that we could then do the R and then put the controls in, and that also meant you would perhaps do a fuel leasing program, which had been supported, you know, sort of a, whether it's an international or whatever that was, the idea basically of doing that. And it lasted about three months, all right, until the first budget came through. It had, you know, I went around with the under secretary at the time of, you know, Bob Joseph and so on. And boy, that was, we got a lot of enthusiasm from every country we visited, because people, they were responsibly saying, yes, we're all moving in different directions, but if we look out ahead, okay, then work backwards, we can now begin to basically do this. But it was based on the idea that there really was going to be a nuclear renaissance, that we were looking for a time when there was going to be a lot of nuclear everywhere. People were concerned about, and the technology was moving into reprocessing and fast reactors, and this was a good time to get ahead of that, even though you recognize that you still had all these local problems to deal with, let's work together internationally and basically do. But it didn't last because, domestically, we were unable to make the case. We still had to deal with Yucca Mountain. You mentioned in your little report the importance of dry cast storage. Well, we were unable to put dry cast storage a part of that because Yucca Mountain, we didn't want to get, people didn't want to get dry cast storage in the way of Yucca Mountain. So there's this complicated domestic problems in terms of where we were going in nuclear power, that sort of undercut the ability to think internationally together, even though the international perspective in terms of let's do R&D together, and let's work the non-proliferation perspective backwards, because how lies, friends don't non-proliferate, not friends don't proliferate. And let's basically work that. But it was the domestic problem that we faced at the time. Now if I could take just another couple of minutes, or do you want to... Let's, big, let's... But let me shut up, and that was why the, if you will, the GNAP did not succeed. It was not because of the international, it was because of the domestic concerns in this country. That's actually a great segue into what I wanted to raise next in terms of solutions to the challenges of plutonium stockpiling. There's a whole range of options one can think about. The United States has direct leverage through nuclear cooperation agreements, through other tools as well. And then there's a whole range of more international types of options. What I want to do is firstly maybe explore some of these international options with Tatsu and Sharon, and then come back to Tom and Bill to talk about what the US can do and what role one, two, three agreements can play in that. Tatsu, you've been kind of very imaginative and vocal in thinking about international ways, regional ways of dealing with Japan's reprocessing capability in plutonium. Do you want to kick us off by talking about some of these ideas? Yes. One idea is that already before many times at the Soko International Plutonium Storage and giving up the ownership of Japan's plutonium stockpile is one way to raise the confidence in the region that Japan will not use plutonium for non-peaceful use. And Japan can always bring back plutonium if they want to. And just for short term, giving up the ownership and then give it to IAEA, whatever authority could help to reduce international concern. The question is, of course, when Japan wants to bring back plutonium, what are the criteria that IAEA would define that's a reasonable thing to do? The problem is, of course, we have a huge amount of plutonium stockpile, we don't have any economic rationale to use plutonium. So that's why Japan is probably concerned when they give up the plutonium, never come back to Japan. And, but I think at least to reduce international concern about Japan's intention, that's one thing that we can still continue to consider at this moment. The second option is that... Sasu, let me just ask you a brief follow up question there and not to interrupt your flow too much. We've raised this idea in Japan amongst bureaucrats in Tokyo, amongst the nuclear industry. What kind of reactions do you get? Well, the first one is, as I said, that this is an important energy resource for Japan and that we want to keep the plutonium. And whenever we want to use plutonium, we want to return back. And it is going to be, there is a concern that the losing control over plutonium is a national sovereignty issue. So that's the first reaction. But another proposal I have is actually the UK proposal. Take title of Japan's plutonium in the UK, stolen in UK. Again, when I propose this idea, the question is, the response is that this is the important energy resource for Japan. Giving up the ownership is not good for Japan. And also, in the UK, it's going to dispose plutonium as a waste. And Japanese basic policy is to consider this is the energy resource, not the waste. So this is a conflict that they have to resolve. Thank you, and was that the second point you wanted to make? That's right, second point was the UK, yes. Okay. Sharon, let me ask you about a kind of a two-part question about an international approach to dealing with plutonium. One idea that's been advocated is for trying to negotiate a collective cause on reprocessing amongst Japan, South Korea, and China. Let me ask you, firstly, for your opinion about that specific proposal of a joint trilateral pause amongst the three states in the region. And secondly, to ask you more generally, do you think it's helpful to try to deal with these three states collectively, or is it better to deal with, you know, have a US-China track on reprocessing, a separate US-Japan track on reprocessing, and a separate US-ROK track on reprocessing? Great question, James. So a collective pause would, well, it's not a pause because nobody's reprocessing right now, right? So it would be, what would you call that? A continued moratorium, kind of. Yeah, if we could come up with another term other than moratorium. Peace train. Peace train. I'm gonna have to think about this, but, right, I think people who oppose reprocessing on national security, nuclear security, and non-proliferation reasons are actually pretty happy right now because China is kind of sitting on the fence in terms of what it's gonna do. Japan, we have a three-year window, and South Korea is in a kind of state of turmoil. So the time is propitious, I would say, to perhaps talk to all three. The problem is there are very different stages, right, of what they're doing and why. The internationalist in me would really wants to cheer that kind of effort on, but I can see some practical problems. I mean, anytime I have, for example, talk to South Korean experts about, well, gee, maybe you don't need to reprocessing and we can work out a deal with Japan. It's really a very unpopular idea. To your second question, yeah, there are a lot of proposals out there, a nuclear, not just a nuclear weapons free zone, but a nuclear reprocessing free zone. Can we treat Northeast Asia as a whole, I'd like to think it's possible, but we haven't gotten there yet, despite Tatsu's awesome efforts. I don't think the US has done very well in that trilateral. I mean, we heard in the earlier panel about some trilateral dialogues on deterrence. Those are really, it's shocking, so many years we've been in Asia and we've only been doing that in the last maybe 10 years. I think we need to do more. Tom Vick, I wanna talk to you about US policy in particularly one, two, three agreements, but before I come onto that, I just wanna give the two of you a chance to comment very briefly on some of those ideas that Tatsu and Sharon were throwing out there, that I was throwing out as well. International plutonium storage, coordinated pools on reprocessing. Do you see there's any legs on any of those proposals? As I say, if I can ask you just to answer that question briefly, Tom, do you wanna go first? Sure, the answer is yes, there either one is possible, even if the possibilities are remote. Problem with the first one is that it is Japan's official policy that plutonium is very valuable, that it has a value above zero. The rest of the world knows that plutonium has a negative economic value. And so how do you get to a price agreement between Japan and France or the UK? I actually think it's possible. It's possible in part by picking a date for payment that's way in the future and allowing for that money to be paid back if Japan decides it really wants that stuff. You can't, wouldn't be easy, but you could finesse the question of you think it's worthless and I think it's very valuable, you can deal with that. Second, in terms of a trilateral moratorium, I don't think the United States, even if we had a functioning White House and State Department would be capable of making that initiative, but I think Japan could. And I can come back to that point in my later comment, Vic. No, I don't have anything there. Okay, let's talk a bit about, let me come back to Tom and Vic to talk a bit about one, two, three agreements and other forms of US bilateral pressure. A number of us were publicly and privately urging the US to use the possibility of renegotiating the US-Japan one, two, three agreements as leverage to try to get Japan to make more promises on its plutonium. That opportunity has now passed. Decisions for better or for worse have been made that the one, two, three is not gonna be renewed. But- It's gonna be renegotiated. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Not gonna be renegotiated. But we still have the future of the US one, two, three career, sorry, the US career one, two, three on the horizon. The 10-year study, which I believe started before the US career agreement was formally adopted, is gonna, you know, we've got about five years of that left to run, give or take. So it's not gonna be possible to delay decisions about reprocessing in Korea indefinitely. So let me ask both Tom and Vic starting with Vic. Under what conditions do you think the US should exceed to pyro-processing in South Korea? And how much do you, more generally, how much do you view one, two, three agreements as a useful tool versus just a blunt object for being able to prevent plutonium stockpiling? Well, I'm not gonna get specifically, let me just raise the issue that I really think is the big umbrella here, right? That we haven't touched the policies, okay? And that is the US is getting out of the nuclear power business entirely. And if you say, well, we're using one, two, threes as a way of doing that, well, we've got nothing to get, if 20 years from now we have nothing to give in one, two, threes, the agreement itself doesn't mean anything. And I think one, you know, you mentioned that the problem with fast reactors may not be the economic. I'm suggesting in this country at least, no nuclear would be economic, all right? And if no nuclear is economic, then you have to look for A for other reasons besides just economics to do it. Clearly, the big one to me, well, there are two, the big one of course is climate change. I mean, if you're serious about climate change, you have to be very serious about nuclear. Is that where do the economics play in that? That's it again. And the second of course has to do with non-proliferation because it gets back to the original point. If you're in the nuclear business, you know, whether it's prestige or this and that and the other thing, the processes are too similar to make it, you'll always have to worry about non-proliferation in your nuclear. That means to me the most important non-proliferation issue and the national security in general is keeping the US in the civil nuclear power business. That's a national security and environmental issue. It's not economics because the economic, and let me recommend, if I could, a book that just came out by Megan Sullivan and called Windfall. Right, and I don't know if you people are familiar with the title, it is How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics. And it talks about hydrofracking and how that has changed over the past five or, just changed our whole country from a place of being a nuclear, always worrying about energy security to now a potential energy supplier. How that has changed, it changes northeast, it changes everywhere. She goes through this whole book and barely mentions nuclear. It's just not a problem. From a purely energy perspective. It'll always be a problem for the national, non-proliferation issue, of which some of this is, I think, is appropriate. But it's changed significantly. It certainly changed the perspective in Japan, right, in terms of liquid natural gas and how these things are basically doing this. So in my sense, that's why I'm saying, hey, it's not that stockpiling proliferation is, I'm sorry, plutonium is not an issue. Yes, it is an issue, but there are these have to be thought of in these broader, basically be thought of in these broader issues. And I don't think our country, to say the least, as well as other countries around the world have to think and have to think about that. And then those are global issues we can't decide by ourselves. And that was the difference. Again, thinking back to Genevieve, everybody thought there was fundamentally going to be a nuclear renaissance because of the economic basis of that. That's no longer the case. Now, if that's no longer the case, all of these issues in terms of nuclear proliferation, climate and so forth have to be rethought of in terms of that. So from my perspective of that, in other words, that's why the specific priorities, it's not that they're not important, but they have to be thought of in a different, in a different perspective. I don't know, Tom, you're in this business. Tom, give us a diplomat's perspective. Especially on the utility of one, two, three, is given a big point that if the US has less and less to give through one, two, three agreements compared to other suppliers, their utility presumably is decreasing. Okay, several points. First, I think one, two, three's have incredible utility. I honestly did not, while at state, and do not today think of one, two, three's as pressure or leverage. I understand that sometimes our partners feel like they're on the receiving end of pressure or leverage. But particularly for the ROK in Japan, these are our two most important partners in civil nuclear energy. And it is understandable that we have to find a way to work together even if we have somewhat different views about fuel cycles and about non-proliferation risk. And I think the United States standing up for principles that it has long espoused is not a form of pressure. It is the US doing what it should do, at least during the time when it chose to be a world leader. Now, what specifically should we do? In the case of ROK, we should finish the fuel cycle. It should take a very hard look, as the one, two, three agreement says, at the technical, the economic, and the non-proliferation issues associated with pyro-processing. And it is crucial that that fuel cycle study not be influenced by political pressure coming out of either country, but be very strong and defensible in its economic and technical and non-proliferation conclusions. That's a few years off, but I have great confidence in the US side in the Department of Energy. In terms of Japan, there's a minimum and a middle and a maximum thing that Japan should be doing. The minimum thing is this. I made several visits to Tokyo and Rokashou in 2015 and 2016. And we talked specifically, post Fukushima, how can the Japanese policy on fuel cycle be made more credible to preserve the standing of Japan in global non-proliferation issues? And the net result of that was not as much as I hoped for, but not insignificant. The December 2016 statement by the government of Japan that crucially it had several things in it, but the most important thing in it was to say that this plutonium balance issue is a responsibility of the government, not just of the utilities. That's major. I understand that conversation has continued between the US and Japan, and that there are a number of similar steps that Japan could take without renouncing its commitment to reprocessing that would give greater confidence to the world about the plutonium stockpile. Nobody in Washington or Tokyo wants to renegotiate the 123, and I understand that. But as I said in another setting, it's always the right time to do the right thing. And the right time after 30 years of the 123 when there has been a passive decision not to renegotiate it, the right time to give the world that added confidence about this stockpile is now. So I hope Japan takes that seriously, and I think that's the minimum that it ought to do. The medium it ought to do is harder, and that is to have a serious economic study of the continued costs of a closed fuel cycle in comparison to other options. Under what options, under what scenarios does the commitment to reprocessing and building more pluthermal reactors make sense, make economic sense? If it requires 18 pluthermal reactors operating full speed within a certain number of years, is that politically realistic? I know that the many fine people at METI study this constantly and tinker with the report and with the assumptions and with the justification. It is not an insult as a former bureaucrat for me to say that bureaucrats will stick to the program and will not question assumptions about realities that have fundamentally changed in the last 40 years. And that's why I would hope that the Japanese diet would insist upon an independent economic study of the costs of continuing on this cycle versus the costs of once-through reactors, the costs of dry cast storage. And there's a number of steps that ought to be taken. My personal view is that the economics will never work and particularly will not work in a country whose polity is likely to resist the construction of dozens of new nuclear facilities. But that's my assumption and if I'm proven wrong by an objective study, I'll accept that. But the objective study has yet to be done. The most ambitious thing Japan could do as I referred to a moment ago is to say we are the sponsors and the initiators of a trilateral regional moratorium on reprocessing. We know that there are some reasons for doing reprocessing but there are both economic and security costs and we are willing to forego the economic benefits in order to have a more secure East Asia. Japan can credibly say that. I don't think anyone else in the world can. Finally, one thing about one, two, three is it needs to be done right here in Washington. I had the pleasure of testifying to several congressional committees about one, two, three agreements. Yes, pleasure is the correct word. You're not in the government anymore, you're ready to say that. Actually they're kind of fun sometimes. There's something, a couple were. On a couple of the one, two, threes that we signed that had no expiration date, a number of senators said to us, I don't like these. We get one chance in 30 years to review a one, two, three agreement and now under these new agreements that last indefinitely, we don't even get that. Well, this is the chance. I think it is absolutely appropriate and smart for the Congress to hold hearings about civil nuclear cooperation with Japan and about the Japanese choices on fuel cycle. Not to block or to question the extension of the one, two, three, but because it is something that ought to be discussed every 30 years. And if I can leave East Asia for 10 seconds, they ought to talk at the same time in congressional hearings about this administration's approach to the upcoming one, two, three negotiations with Saudi Arabia. I want to come to the audience in just a second, but let me just allow Tatsu and Sharon to comment on what's just been said. Sharon, firstly, if I could just ask you and Tatsu to be brief. Firstly, you've written a lot about one, two, three agreements. Do you agree with the assessment of declining leverage that Vick has painted or do you think these are a tool of significant leverage like, or, sorry, significant utility, Tom specifically said not average, but Tom has painted. As Tom has said, these agreements, we've renegotiated most of them, most of the original ones, because they all kind of fell due. We had to renegotiate them because of the 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. And so there aren't too many left to renegotiate. So we have a long stretch ahead of us. I take, I've heard the argument that, you know, the US has to be in the nuclear industry to set standards, yes and no. We set standards a lot of different ways. We set them diplomatically. Honestly, I don't think we're gonna see a lot of nuclear power plant growth globally, even for climate change, exactly for the reason that you give, it's too expensive. We can do so much more faster with other technologies. It's called natural gas. And the other thing is we don't really have to sell reactors to have a say over what countries do. So you can sell fuel, you can sell parts. So I do, and it's not the only, I mean, Thomas said this a zillion times in testimony, right? It's not the only tool in the toolbox. There are a lot of other things. So I think we still have to use these other approaches, whether they're international storage or for heaven's sake, you could do something under a fissile material production cutoff treaty if this country ever decided it might be interested in that again. And then Tatsu, finally, in your opening comments, you mentioned using this three-year window before Rokasho opens for some time of US-Japan cooperation on disposal of plutonium. I have to ask, given this country's unimpressive record with managing to dispose of US plutonium, what does, like, tell us more briefly about this idea? Well, I think, first of all, I appreciate the Thomas proposal, all three proposals, I pretty much agree. And the law, actually, the law I mentioned, the original intention was to continue reprocessing even if the liberalization of the electricity market that economics doesn't make sense, but now the law says that the UTD must continue. However, at the same time, as Tom said, now the authority goes to government to control the reprocessing. So if they want to, they can stop reprocessing. And before the law, it was a private business, so it was very hard for the government to control. But as Tom said, if the government wants to control plutonium balance, they have now authority to do that. So that's a good part of the new law. And for economic assessment, I think I personally involved in the assessment, and I think it's obvious to everybody in Japan, even in Japan, that the reprocessing doesn't make any sense for the short term. That's what they say. But long term may still could be economical if the first reactor comes online. But the first reactor is now gone. Monju is a council. So first of all, I like the idea of the diet. The parliament will do an investigation. And finally, the response to your questions. I think the joint R&D, for instance, for plutonium disposal is very useful for to assess, to explore the alternatives to the plutonium use in the right-water reactors. And, but again, we have to challenge the notion that plutonium is an energy resource. We have to accept the fact that the plutonium can be disposed as a waste. And that's a big challenge for Japanese government to take. But I think it's technically speaking, there are other ways to deal with plutonium. And that will be good for the public to understand. So I'm in favor of the joint task force, whatever, to consider the alternatives over the plutonium dispersion other than the MOG's fuel cycle. Thanks for that. Okay, let me throw out open to the audience. I'm gonna take two questions at a time. Please identify yourself and say to which panelist you're addressing your question. There's no panelist called all panelists. So please, please, please do identify a specific panelist for your question. Who's first? Answering every possible question. Gentleman at the front, yes. I vaguely recognize you. John Wostal, you saw me before. Tatsu, I had a question for you. When I was in government, I got in a little bit of trouble because I made the comment that if Japan, the Japanese government wanted to revisit its decisions and wanted to find some other way to manage its plutonium stockpile that they would find the United States a willing partner that we were prepared to support just as we support the current decision. I've made that comment because we have heard from some Japanese officials and Japanese commentators that one of the reasons that Japan doesn't change its policy is because it has a deal with the United States and that they wouldn't want to in any way go back on that or is that, do people in Japan really think that we would want to continue the current pathway? Is that in any way a weight on the side of the scale to maintain the current program? I'm just curious whether that's a real thing or not. Thanks, John. Any other questions in this round? Okay, let me go to Tatsu and then we'll take more questions. Well, thank you for the question. I think that's some kind of misperception by the Japanese media and the public or even within the government that when the previous government democratic party announced to phase out nuclear power, their voices from the US government not to phase out nuclear power and continue recycle to burn plutonium. And that has been misinterpreted that the US government is pushing Japanese government to continue nuclear program and also continue nuclear fuel cycle program. And so I'm trying to fix that problem also but it is hard because the government continues to say we need Mox program to reduce plutonium stockpile and then we need the reprocessing. And that is contradictory remarks for me but people take that statement as a natural policy. Oh, we need the Mox recycling program to reduce plutonium stockpile. That's why we need reprocessing. And that's a misunderstanding. So I think it's very good for us to continue to say Mox burning is different from closing nuclear fuel cycle. Thanks, Tatsu. Next round of questions. Yes, please. Thank you. Ben Sell from the Mansfield Foundation. Again, wonderful panel. I learned a lot. I have a question for Mr. Countryman. Japan is a role model, a poster child of nonproliferation behavior and under the NPT is guaranteed certain rights in terms of peaceful use of nuclear energy. So how can we avoid creating this image of a second class citizen or a special target when we convince Japan that its policies are misguided given they've done so much to be a good citizen in this regard and the NPT does guarantee them certain rights that we're asking them to suspend in the context when we're not even meeting our own obligations under the treaty to negotiate in good faith to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. Please, Tom. The very last phrase, I might disagree that we are failing to meet our obligations. We certainly tried as long as I was in office to find a negotiating partner. The NPR, which was... Well, look, there's plenty of factors here. Not everything you have a right to do is a good idea, no matter what the NRA says. I think that we pursue an understanding with Japan, not as a point of leverage or pressure, not as a dictation about their national energy choices or their fuel cycle choices, not to remind them that we are a senior partner somehow in the Alliance. I believe very strongly that this is a crucial partnership for security, for economics, and for diplomacy, and that all three of them, we should seek to strengthen Japan's role in all three of them. I believe that an objective economic study and technical study of the choices Japan has will result in several things. Additional credibility is an advocate for non-proliferation and disarmament for the Japanese. It will result in a better economic situation for Japanese utilities, for Japanese consumers, even though they are often the lowest priority, and for Japanese manufacturers that seek to compete in a very tight global economy. I also believe, and in this, I am different than every US congressman and most parliamentarians around the world, that reckless spending and huge deficits are actually a detriment to national security. And third, I think it would improve Japan's standing and improve the security situation in this complex triangle among the ROK Japan China and then the outlier North Korea as well. So I don't, you know, the question about rights is one that has been misused by the Iranians for years, is now being misused by the Saudis in their one, two, three argument. We don't go around crushing people's rights, or we shouldn't. But we should seek to have our best friends have an extraordinarily clear-eyed view of which of their rights are most intelligently utilized. So please, Sharon. Push back just a little bit. And that is because I've read a lot of different studies on the cost of reprocessing and the numbers can come out almost any which way you want. I mean, at least the US studies, and some of them are biased, but my question is what if Japan has a very specific situation with the industry? What if even the most kind of objective approach comes up with the answer that, well, it's still cheaper to continue on this path. And the reason why, right, is because if you don't open Rikasho, the AMORI prefecture sends all the spent fuel back to the power plants, right? And what if those power plants have a, what if there are big public demonstrations? What if those communities, as we've known in certain countries, have to be paid off? What if there's a whole chain of things? So I'm a little, even though I applaud the idea of an objective economic analysis, I think that that's kind of a thin basis for me to be comfortable on. And because I could well see Saudi Arabia, and actually the Koreans, I could well see the Saudi Arabia coming up and saying, well, this is perfectly economic, we've done the study. I mean, the Koreans told me that they could enrich uranium at like half the cost of Eureka. Some people are laughing in the audience, exactly, right? So I've never been able to get them to give me the study, but I fully anticipate that the end of this joint fuel cycle study, which will end in 2021, when you look at the financial aspects, that the Korean answer is gonna be quite different from the American answer. So that was more of a rant than a question, for which I apologize. But Tatsu, are there specific elements in Japan that would cause you to be concerned about how the industry is set up in the legal, this law now requiring utilities to reprocess their fuel? Do you think that those are obstacles to getting a really good cost estimate? No, we have done cost analysis, and it's obvious that reprocessing is more expensive. And the industry accept that. And the problem is expensive, they argue that the difference of the one through versus reprocessing is smaller than the nuclear power versus fossil fuel. And as Vick said, this is because we need nuclear power. And that's a wrong comparison to me, but it is argument that they make. And in addition, as you say, it's more socio-political cost of phasing, I mean the stopping locus. And phasing out reprocessing may be a different issue, but it's stopping locus at this moment may cause socio-political cost to the whole nuclear industry. That's another thing that we have to consider too. But even if you include those things, I would say of course to my knowledge that continually processing is more risky and more costly. If I may mention on that, obviously a comprehensive economic study by objective efforts is not a yes no question. It's gonna cost seven cents a kilowatt hour this way and seven and a half cents that way. There's a number of variables and a number of points in critical decision points that you could take a look at. I'll just mention one, which is I have no doubt that there's social and political costs for pissing off the governor of Aylmore. But I also believe that a lot of political and social costs can be directed or can be offset by economic expenditure. What I mean is I've got an idea about above the table bribery and I hastened out I had this idea before January 20th of last year that if you are going to save X billion dollars in cutting out not ever starting Roca Show, how many million dollars could you give to every single man, woman and child in Aylmore prefecture so that they're satisfied with the outcome? That's one of the questions that you ought to ask. Yes, the governor has the national government in a vice grip around their neck on this issue. But there's more than one way to break that vice grip. If there's no questions. Okay, let me, I wanted to bring in Vic there, but let me take a couple of questions here. Firstly, gentlemen here, yeah, I'm in Kingston. Patrick Roberts, Virginia Tech, question to Tatsu. What would it take for Japan to give up control of the plutonium stockpile to an international body such as the IAEA? And then what kind of rules would be needed to be able to allow Japan to access that stockpile should it want to? Kingston, yeah, but do introduce yourself nonetheless. Thank you. Kingston Reef with the Arms Control Association. My questions for Sharon and Sharon, you had mentioned that the joint US ROK study on pyro reprocessing began in 2011 and is scheduled to be completed in 2021. And the current US ROK agreement says that once that study is finished, the two sides quote shall consult with a view to identify and appropriate options for the management and disposition of spent fuel subject to the agreement and for further development or demonstration of relevant technologies. End quote, 2021 also happens to be the date when after the three year delay that Japan recently announced that Rikasho is supposed to begin reprocessing. How much more difficult does it become to attempt to convince the ROK not to go down the pyro reprocessing route if Rikasho starts? How tightly coupled would those two decisions be come 2021? Katsuo, conditions on the way to town? Yes, thank you for the question. There are various issues to be involved. First of all, whether Japan will announce all plutonium at the same time to be international storage, which is very unlikely. And my suggestion is to recognize that Japan can voluntarily announce the so-called excess plutonium beyond some certain demand that they can foresee in the next five years or whatever. And so that some kind of time period that Japan can identify these plutonium will be needed for their own energy use. But beyond that, 47 tons is a huge amount of plutonium to be burned. So such amount could be so-called excess plutonium for civilian use. And then, you know, gradually they can bring back the plutonium for their own energy use program. That's one possible idea. You understand what I'm saying? But the point is that Japan should have some kind of authority to bring back the plutonium. And that's what probably they need. How much would the restarts of Rikasho complicate US-ROK relations over pyro processing? Get out my crystal ball. Kingston, thanks for connecting the dots for me. That would be a great source of leverage to go back to the Japanese and say, would you just wait another year, please? I'm sure it will be one thing. I mean, it could actually be fairly contentious. So we'll have to see 2021 and that's after... Is that after Mr. Trump? I don't know that. 17, I hope so. A lot of things could happen between now and then. We could have rapprochement between North and South Korea. So, you know, it's hard to say, but we should keep that on our radar screens. And if that would be a reason to delay Rikasho for at least another year, I think it would be helpful. Vic, you haven't said much during this Q&A. I want to bring you in on two points or anything else you want to add. There's an assumption, I think, amongst all the other panelists that A, reprocessing is more expensive than one through fuel cycle. And B, because it is, states shouldn't engage in reprocessing. Do you agree with both of those assumptions? I agree with A. I think when we've looked at it, it clearly costs... There's no reason to expect it'll be cheaper. I mean, when, again, the whole idea of GNEP was that, hey, recycling is good. You know, as a long-term, 50-year, so forth and so on. A, and then B, you know, there were two perspectives on that. One was recycling as a principle is good. And we don't know what's going to happen with uranium and all these other things, so let's think about that. But it's a long-term research program because you don't know. In principle, right now, there's no way you can think of any way that recycling can make this cheaper. I mean, mocks is sort of... But, you know, hey, mocks turned out to not so cheap. I was going to suggest we move Rokasho to South Carolina and solve all these problems. So, yes. But, again, my concern is right now is that any nuclear is too expensive. But nuclear, really, you can, because of this interplay on terms of reprocessing, it's a national issue. It may not be a prestige issue, but it's an important national security issue. And of course, since I believe climate change is really important, it's clearly an essential part of the mix on how we basically deal with that. And on top of that, I'm saying, well, wait a minute, where do we get our... Why should we be telling Japan in terms of our ally what is the best way to do that? Let them work it. Is this a national security issue in the near term? As long as they're keeping... As long as they have good security procedures, and they do, you know, there are bigger... There are longer, bigger-term issues. Just briefly, in terms of the Middle East, where you have to go through many of these same processes, and I would argue, from a national security perspective, that's much higher, where you're not dealing with, if you will, people who we've worked with for many, many years, and essentially our, you know, our basically agreement. So that's what I was saying is, hey, this is a priority. Yeah, this is not unimportant, but there are policy solutions like, just do what we continue to do and work on this in a longer-term perspective than, you know, from this overlap between civil nuclear power and non-proliferation. And I would add climate as part of that, as well, and I think Japan is a, you know, is a potential... People have a different situation, you know. It's very interesting, you know, and we should be continuing to work with them in these same ways, but I just don't see this as the critical issue that might have been, say, 10 years ago or 5% of us. Is that different than you? No, but my question is, James Acton knows a lot more about this issue than I do, so I was hoping you would have some comments on what we've said and some provocative statements. As the moderator, I actually wasn't particularly inclined to kind of delve too deeply into this. Oh, please. But since you asked... No, I mean, look, my position was that ahead of the recent announcement that the 1, 2, 3 agreement was going to be renewed or rather not renegotiated is a better way to say it. I thought this was a valuable source of leverage for the US. I'd make two points. Firstly, as far as the issue of rights and responsibilities goes, Japan has taken on obligations for itself not to stop our plutonium. It is a matter of Japanese policy not to have access to plutonium. There is a politically binding international agreement called INSIRC 549, which says that plutonium supply and demand should be in balance. So this is not really the US imposing on Japan or removing Japan's rights and obligations. These are rights and obligations that Japan has taken on itself. And I think, you know, at a kind of practical policy level I think I would agree with a lot of the stuff that's been said. I think Japan revising its definition of what constitutes excess plutonium to have a time limit between when plutonium is separated and when it has to be burned I think is a very useful way forward. As I understand it, the UK offered to Japan that Japan, that the UK if acceptable commercial terms can be agreed will take ownership of Japanese plutonium. I believe the offer is still on the table. I don't think it's ever been formally rescinded by the UK. I think Japan also can do a lot more on dry-carsk storage domestically in order to prevent the need to keep on operating right now. I mean, I think this is one of those challenges where it's necessary to make a lot of small policy interventions. But I think it's, you know, for me this is an important challenge. Let me take one last question if there is one. Well, we're almost exactly dead on time so let me do something very unusual in Washington and actually try and end this event on time. I just got kind of two or three thank yous. Firstly, let me thank everyone on this panel. I think this was an exceptional panel and a particular thanks to Sharon for jumping in at the last minute but also to all four panelists who I think are four of the most knowledgeable and trenchant people on this issue. Secondly, I just want to say a big shout out to thank Carnegie staff, particularly Aaron McLaughlin who's standing at the back but also all of the other Carnegie staff that have helped today. This kind of event always involves a lot of staff time and effort and I'm deeply grateful to everyone who put in. Thank you to Nagasar University and to Rekna, our co-hosts at this event. It's been great working with you guys. We'd love to do it again. All that remains for me to say is to kind of encourage you to keep on tuning in to Carnegie Endowment to the work of the new policy programs to our publications, events, Twitter feeds, Facebook page. We're not as controversial as some people on Twitter but we hope to try to illuminate some of the noise at least and thank you all very much for coming.