3 ms·

Do they want to transition to it for energy or for weapons? Nuclear power takes long time to adapt to. Why hurry now? It's not like the public started caring a

• p_l 5y ago
  Japan is already in the position of having nuclear-tipped ICBMs essentially "whenever it wants". The conservative time period from decision to arm with nuclear weapons and having ICBMs with usable nuclear warheads was estimated by (public) CIA documents at 1 year. That's less than it takes to make a new power plant.
• colechristensen 5y ago
  You don't need full scale power plants to produce weapons grade material. The reasons for anti-proliferation targeting of power plants is countries that want to hide their weapons programs in commercial power plants. Japan isn't Iran, the thing to fear from Japan arming is the short-term response from China, et al. and other less allied countries wanting to follow suit. Long term, a nuclear Japan might be a good thing for regional stability. It is very possible that Japan already has nuclear weapons or production is simply a matter of assembly. They have thousands of pounds of weapons grade or very-easy-to-change-into-weapons-grade nuclear materials, enough for thousands of bombs. Additional power infrastructure would have no effect on their readiness to become armed.
• sigstoat 5y ago
  you don't need to build large commercial nuclear plants if you just want material for weapons. that kind of thing can be built on a military base where nobody hears about it, and nobody gets to file environmental impact lawsuits.