In a vote that could affect Japan's nuclear policy, residents of a village that is home to the world's largest nuclear power plant voted against a proposal Sunday to use recycled plutonium at the facility.
The first-ever referendum on one of Japan's most contentious energy policies was not legally binding. But the vote in Kariwa, a village of 5,000 people about 160 miles north of Tokyo, was closely followed by the national media.
The result was expected to ratchet up pressure on the Japanese government and utility companies to rethink plans to introduce plutonium-based mixed oxide, or MOX, in nuclear reactors around the country over the next 10 years.
Resource-poor Japan depends on nuclear energy for about a third of its electricity needs. MOX is made by mixing uranium with plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel, and Japanese energy planners see it as one long-term solution to the troublesome problem of nuclear waste disposal.
Environmentalists are worried because MOX is much more volatile than conventional fuel. And the Japanese public has become increasingly uncomfortable with the government's commitment to all forms of nuclear power following a series of accidents and cover-ups in recent years.
Japanese utility companies planned to begin using MOX fuel two years ago, but the plans were postponed after the nation was shaken by its worst-ever nuclear accident in September 1999.
Two workers died and hundreds of people were exposed to radiation following an uncontrolled nuclear reaction in the town of Tokaimura, just 70 miles northeast of Tokyo.
More than 88 percent of all eligible voters cast ballots in Kariwa on Sunday. According to village official, Naoki Yoshigoe, 1,925 of 3,605 residents who voted were opposed to the plan and 1,533 in favor.
It was a clearly a difficult choice for a community where one household in four has a member working for Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the 16-year-old nuclear plant, or for a related business.
Kazuyuki Takemoto, the leader of a citizen's group campaigning against the MOX project in Kariwa, told NHK television news that the referendum was "historic."
The president of Tokyo Electric Power said that he was "disappointed" by the result but did not say how it would affect the company's plans to use recycled fuel in Kariwa or elsewhere.
The Japanese government -- which has drawn up plans to introduce the recycled fuel in 16 to 18 nuclear reactors around the country by 2010 -- has not said how it will react to the vote.
But with newly elected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promising reforms and an end to politics as usual, a popular outcry against the nuclear industry may get a more sympathetic hearing than under previous administrations.
The MOX fuel intended for use at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was processed by the Belgian company Belgonucleaire and imported by Tokyo Electric Power. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa's light water reactors produce 8.2 million kilowatts of energy per year, making it the world's largest in terms of power generated.
Another Japanese utility company, Kansai Electric Power Co., suspended its own MOX project following revelations last year that safety data about fuel imported from Britain had been falsified by the processing company.
Plutonium is used by 32 plants in nine countries including France and Germany, according to Greenpeace. The environmental group is strongly opposed to the Japan's MOX program.
"Japan's plan for using plutonium was going nowhere before today's result," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Kazue Suzuki. "Tonight it is in ruin."
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