行革公開検証 もんじゅが焦点だ

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 10
EDITORIAL: Scrap Monju reactor project and use money to develop renewable energies
（社説）行革公開検証　もんじゅが焦点だ

The annual public review of policy programs by the government to identify wasteful spending ends on Nov. 13. For three days, the government’s administrative reform promotion council has been scouring the budgets of ministries and agencies for savings.
　各省庁の政策に無駄遣いがないか点検する公開検証が、今年も１１日から３日間、実施される。政府の行政改革推進会議が行う。

The focus of the budget review this year is the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor.
　今回の焦点は、高速増殖炉「もんじゅ」の扱いだ。

The Nuclear Regulation Authority recently recommended that the operator of the troubled-plagued experimental reactor, the government-affiliated Japan Atomic Energy Agency, should be replaced.
もんじゅを巡っては、運営主体の日本原子力研究開発機構が原子力規制委員会から運営を退くよう言い渡されたばかりだ。

Certain expenditures related to the Monju project, mainly state subsidies, were examined in the public review. But the council should take this opportunity to scrutinize all aspects of the controversial project instead of evaluating only the subsidies. We are keen to see the panel demonstrate that continuing the project doesn’t make sense and the reactor should be decommissioned from the viewpoint of administrative reforms.
公開検証では、もんじゅ関連予算の一部である交付金などが対象となっている。しかし、せっかくの機会である。交付金にとどまらずに全体像に切り込んで、行革の面から政策の不合理と廃炉の妥当性を示してほしい。

It is already clear that the Monju project is a financial folly.
　もんじゅは、財政面から見ても行き詰まりが明らかになっている。

The construction cost, which was originally estimated at 35 billion yen ($285 million) when the project was in an early planning stage in the 1970s, has ballooned to 1 trillion yen. Although the reactor has been offline for more than 20 years due to a series of accidents and scandals, 20 billion yen is still spent annually, or 50 million yen a day, for maintenance.
７０年代の計画初期段階で３５０億円と見積もられていた建設費は、すでに１兆円規模に達した。事故や不祥事で２０年以上運転できずにいる今も年間約２００億円、１日あたり約５千万円が維持費に消えている。

The maintenance costs of the reactor under the initial budget for the current fiscal year are almost equivalent to the amount (23.8 billion yen) being shelled out to promote renewable energy projects for local power production and consumption.
　もんじゅの維持費は、今年度当初予算で見れば、地産地消型の再生可能エネルギー活用への取り組み支援（２３８億円）に匹敵し、

The outlays for the Monju project are far larger than the spending on a demonstration project to build a transmission network for wind power generation (10.5 billion yen) or the appropriation to support research for the development of geothermal power sources (8 billion yen).
風力発電用の送電網整備に向けた実証事業（１０５億円）や地熱発電の開発調査支援（８０億円）を大きく上回る。

Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan widened the scope of its energy policy to make greater efforts to develop and promote alternative power sources, including renewable energy.
　福島での原発事故を経て日本のエネルギー政策は、再エネなど新しい電源の普及・育成にも手を広げはじめた。

Instead of spending a huge amount of taxpayer money to keep Monju alive, the government should use the cash to build a new, cleaner energy future for this nation.
もんじゅの継続に巨費を投じるより、新しいエネルギー社会の構築に費やしてはどうか。

Japan is facing a serious fiscal crunch. The government is drowning in a sea of debt as its welfare spending is surging amid the rapid aging of the nation’s population.
　高齢化と巨額の財政赤字を抱えた日本の財政事情は厳しく、

The government has no choice but to raise taxes while cutting its expenditures on social security, education and other programs.
社会保障費や教育費などを切り詰めつつ増税することが避けられない。

It cannot afford the luxury of pouring a hefty sum of money into a questionable nuclear reactor with no prospects for practical operation.
運転の見通しが立たない事業に資金を投入し続ける余裕はないはずだ。

The Monju project has survived for so long despite its troubled history because nobody loses money when the reactor is out of operation.
　もんじゅがこれまで存続してきたのは、運転できなくて困る直接の当事者がいないからだ。

When a reactor operated by an electric utility is shut down because of an accident or a scandal, the company will immediately face a rise in costs that hurts its financial standing.
　電力会社が保有する原発は、事故や不祥事で発電できなければ、たちまちコストがかさみ経営を圧迫する。

In contrast, Monju is treated as a research reactor, and the national program gets funded almost automatically.
だが、研究炉扱いのもんじゅは、国家事業としてほぼ自動的に予算がつく。

Both the industry ministry and the science and technology ministry, which are in charge of the nuclear power policy, have a clear interest in supporting the continuation of the Monju project.
　原子力政策を担当する経済産業省や文部科学省にとっては、続ける姿勢をとり続けたほうがメリットがある。

If this project is terminated, these ministries will be forced to make a sweeping review of the entire nuclear fuel recycling program and tackle the formidable challenge of disposing of plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel.
やめるとなれば、核燃サイクル政策全体の見直しを迫られ、使用済み燃料から取り出したプルトニウムの処理にも直面する。

This year’s public budget review is led by Taro Kono, the newly appointed minister in charge of administrative reform who has been a champion of the cause.
　今回の公開検証は、行革に熱心な河野太郎氏が担当相だ。

We urge Kono to make the decision to scrap the Monju project as a step to press ahead with meaningful administrative reforms.
もんじゅ廃炉という行革の実を挙げてほしい。

There is definitely no reason for approving annual spending of 20 billion yen as the cost of postponing this decision.
２００億円を先送りのコストとして認める理由はないはずである。