In one of the stranger stories to come across the newsreader in recent weeks, The Telegraph of London reported Tuesday that government-funded scientists in Japan are working on a proposal to extract uranium from seawater in an effort to reduce the island nation’s dependence on foreign sources for vital nuclear fuel.  According to The Telegraph article:

Dr Masao Tanada, of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, has developed a fabric made primarily of irradiated polyethylene that is able to soak up the minute amounts of uranium – around 3.3 parts per billion – in the seawater.

The world’s oceans contain an estimated 4.5 billion tons of uranium, around 1,000 times the amount that is known to exist in uranium mines.

Dr Tanada claims Japan’s nuclear power industry could harvest the 8,000 tons it needs each year a year from the Kuroshio Current that flows along Japan’s eastern seaboard.

It is hard to imagine that the release of this news by the Japanese is not intended for effect in the showdown with North Korea.  With current nuclear brinksmanship in the region at an all time peak, will defense planners begin talking in terms of a sponge gap?

All kidding aside, a nuclear-independent Japan would have radical implications for the region, with possible outcomes ranging from benign to catastrophic.  Only time will tell how China and North Korea soak up the news. (Sorry, I should have given a pun alert.)

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