US Vice President Joe Biden to Visit China, Japan, and MONGOLIA

Now that's interesting.

Remember the US and Japan have been pushing for the nuclear fuel final processing facility to be built in Mongolia. Toshiba's president supposedly sent a letter to a high-ranking US official urging them to proceed quickly. Toshiba owns 100% of Westinghouse Electric.

According to CNN, Biden is going to Mongolia to promote "democracy".

From CNN (8/16/2011):

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will depart Tuesday for a trip to China, Mongolia and Japan that will include meetings with China's top leaders.

The trip to China is at the invitation of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping as part of planned reciprocal visits by the two nations' top deputies announced earlier this year, according to a White House statement.

Xi is considered the likely successor to President Hu Jintao.

Biden will meet with Xi, Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao while in China, according to the statement. The vice president's itinerary also includes a visit to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in the southwest.

Biden will also go to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar to demonstrate U.S. support for democratic development there as well as growing diplomatic ties between the countries, the statement said.

In Japan, Biden will "express steadfast U.S. support for its close ally in the wake of the recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency" and will also thank U.S. civilian and military personnel who aided the disaster response, the statement said.

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Toshiba Pushes for Spent Fuel Processing Plant in Mongolia, in Discussion with US Government

Toshiba owns and operates Westingshouse Electric (77% ownership), and has continued to sell nuclear power plants all over the world after the Fukushima accident. So does Hitachi with GE, and so does Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with AREVA. Business as usual, no matter what.

From Kyodo News Japanese (10:08PM JST 7/1/2011):

米原子力大手ウェスチングハウス・エレクトリック（ＷＨ）を子 会社に持つ東芝の佐々木則夫社長が５月中旬、米政府高官に書簡を送り、使用済み核燃料などの国際的な貯蔵・処分場をモンゴルに建設する計画を盛り込んだ新 構想を推進するよう要請、水面下で対米工作を進めていることが１日、分かった。

It became known on July 1 that Norio Sasaki, the president of Toshiba which owns Westingshouse Electric, a major nuclear energy company in the US, sent a letter to a high ranking official in the US government in mid May urging the US government to promote the new scheme that includes a plan to build an international storage and final processing plant for the nuclear spent fuel in Mongolia.

　モンゴルでの核処分場計画は、新興国への原発輸出をにらみ、モンゴルで加工したウラン燃料の供給と使用後の処理 を担う「包括的燃料サービス（ＣＦＳ）」構想の一環。米国とモンゴルが主導し、日本にも参加を呼び掛けた。経済産業省が後押ししてきたが、外務省が慎重姿 勢を示すなど政府内に異論もある。

The plan to build a processing plant in Mongolia is part of the "CFS [Comprehensive Fuel Service?]" scheme to process uranium and to process the spent fuel in Mongolia, eying the lucrative nuclear plant markets in developing countries. The US and Mongolia have been leading the effort, and have asked Japan to join. But there is a difference of opinion within the Japanese government; the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been pushing for the idea, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not too keen.

As I wrote here before, Mongolia does have faults that are capable of producing Magnitude 8 earthquakes. How to transport the spent fuel rods to Mongolia should be a problem, though. Either China or Russia has to agree to have them transported overland. Russia is unlikely to allow that, as it is in direct competition with the US and the West to win nuke plant contracts in developing nations with a packaged deal like the CFS. And China? Maybe, if the US/Mongolia/Japan let China in on the scheme, in exchange of allowing the use of the facility and some "technology transfer" from the US and/or Japan.

It looks like the Cold War has never ended in the minds of politicians and nuclear industry people.

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US, Japan Jointly Push for Spent Fuel Storage Facility in Mongolia To Sell Their Nuke Plants

It's an old piece of news (May 9, 2011) which I think should have received a wider coverage in light of the on-going crisis at Fukushima I Nuke Plant (which receives little coverage on its own these days).

Japan and the US want to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Mongolia, and Mongolia is very eager to join the nuclear power generation club by building the first nuke plant in the country, undeterred by the Fukushima accident.

The reason for the push for the spent fuel storage facility in Mongolia? So that the US-Japan joint ventures that sell nuclear power plants can sell the plants as a package deal that comes with the spent fuel storage, competing with Russians who already offer such a package deal.

Mongolia has faults capable of producing earthquakes of Magnitude 8.

From Reuters (5/9/2011):

TOKYO, May 9 (Reuters) - Japan and the United States plan to jointly build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Mongolia to serve customers of their nuclear plant exporters, pushing ahead despite Japan's prolonged nuclear crisis, the Mainichi daily said on Monday.

A Trade Ministry official said Japan, U.S. and Mongolia officials, at a meeting shortly before Japan's March 11 earthquake, informally discussed possible construction of a nuclear waste storage facility for countries with nuclear power plants but no spent fuel storage capability of their own.

He said there were no concrete plans at this time but the ministry would consider such a project if Mongolia were interested.

The Mainichi said the facility would allow Japanese and U.S. nuclear plant exporters, which include joint ventures and units of General Electric , Hitachi and Toshiba , to better compete with Russian rivals that offer potential nuclear plant customers spent fuel disposal in a package.

Mongolia plans to have its first nuclear power plant by 2020 and to build nuclear fuel production capacity to tap its rich uranium resources, undeterred by the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power complex, a senior official at the state-owned MonAtom LLC said in April.

MonAtom represents the Mongolian government in mining and developing the country's uranium resources.

The trade ministry official denied the Mainichi's report that the three countries had originally planned to sign a deal on the spent fuel disposal project in February but it was postponed as Japan's Foreign Ministry opposed the schedule, citing a lack of consensus among Japanese ministries.

The Mainichi said a new date had not been set in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan, which triggered cooling system malfunctions at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and led to radiation leaks into the atmosphere and the sea.

Engineers are still struggling to bring the plant under control. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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