More than 6 months to lift ban?

March 4, 2015

Lifting ban on Monju tests to take over 6 months

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150304_29.html

Mar. 4, 2015 - Updated 09:52 UTC+1

Japan's nuclear regulator says lifting an effective ban on test runs at the troubled Monju fast-breeder reactor will take more than 6 months.

Monju is a prototype in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, built to reuse spent nuclear fuel in form of MOX fuel -- a mixture of plutonium extracted from spent fuel, and uranium.

Officials of the Nuclear Regulation Authority's secretariat made the remark at an NRA commissioners' meeting on Wednesday.

The officials said at least 3 rounds of quarterly safety inspections, including one that started on Monday, are needed to check whether the reactor's operator makes improvements.

The ban came in May 2013 following a series of problems including missed safety checks involving equipment crucial for safe operations.

Monju's operator, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, has proposed a set of measures to prevent a recurrence, in hopes of having the ban lifted this month.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said at the meeting that the operator must become more aware of the need to take swift steps.

Commissioner Kayoko Nakamura said the secretariat has spent enormous energy on the problem, and that the operator must work with a sense of crisis.

Monju's test operation stopped after a sodium leak there 20 years ago. Sodium is used as coolant in the reactor, but is difficult to handle. The reactor resumed test runs in 2010, but various problems occurred.