The government decided Friday to continue reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for the next 10 years based on a policy outline compiled by the Atomic Energy Commission.
The commission, headed by Shunsuke Kondo, said Japan will continue pursuing the nuclear fuel cycle based on pluthermal power generation.
Pluthermal, or plutonium-thermal power generation, burns plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel made with plutonium reprocessed from spent fuel from light-water reactors.
Government officials said the commission endorsed the policy based on a comparative study of the costs and risks of disposing of spent nuclear fuel instead of reprocessing it.
At the same time, the commission also recommends the government study technologies to dispose of spent nuclear fuel.
The outline calls for using an interim storage facility to store spent nuclear fuel that exceeds the capacity of the nuclear reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, according to the officials.
From around 2010, the government will begin studying how to process or dispose of the nuclear fuel in the interim storage facility and the spent plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel.