Staff writer
For a country obsessed with its lack of natural resources, the shipment of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel due to arrive in Fukushima Prefecture is a landmark in Japan's quest to increase energy self-sufficiency and establish a nuclear fuel cycle by consuming plutonium recycled from its spent fuel.
But the use of plutonium in fuel is a sensitive issue in Japan, where antinuclear sentiment is strong and public trust in atomic power has been damaged in recent years by accidents, coverups and data falsification attempts by the power industry.