抄録
Recently the promoters and the critics argue vehemently the use of nuclear energy for electricity generation. Also groups of local residents are active in anti-nuclear campaigns in various forms. Without doubt the unfortunate accidents of Three Mile Island Unit 2 in 1979 and of Chernobyl Unit 4 in 1986 led to the anti-nuclear movements.
However, Japan is poor in natural resources and imports the bulk of her primary energies from abroad, and hence she is inherently susceptible to the instability of energy supply, as experienced in the first and the second oil crises.
Safe use of nuclear energy can bring about a solution to this instability in the near term. In the longer term the establishment of the fuel cycle covering the use of plutonium will secure Japan a quasi-indigenous source of energy. It is true that nuclear energy alone will not solve all the energy problems but it will be the key in the foreseeable future. Thus securing safety is of the utmost importance to nuclear energy.
This paper reviews briefly the light water reactors in Japan, which are now naturalized and produce about 30% of Japanese electricity generation, and then the paper summarizes the future of fast breeder reactors now under development as the major element in the Japanese nuclear fuel cycle.
