Monju: Call for review

November 4, 2015

Nuclear regulator to call for new Monju reactor operator

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20151104p2g00m0dm066000c.html

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Nuclear regulators decided Wednesday to urge the science minister to pick a new entity to run a trouble-prone prototype fast-breeder reactor within about six months, as they see little progress in safety management operations under the current operator.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority concluded at a meeting open to the public that it is inappropriate to continue having the government-backed Japan Atomic Energy Agency take charge of the Monju reactor in Fukui Prefecture.

The regulatory body will recommend that Hiroshi Hase, the minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, appoint a new operator to bolster the reactor's safety management in its first such action since it was set up in September 2012 after Japan tightened its nuclear safety policy following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

The nuclear watchdog will call for the minister to consider how the safety of the reactor can be guaranteed and also a possible option to close it if the minister is not able to find a replacement.

"We had repeatedly asked (the minister's) officials for improvement but we hadn't seen (any major) improvement," NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said at a press conference after the meeting.

The NRA is not in a position to order the operator to shut down the reactor, as that will depend on a decision to be made by the JAEA, he added.

The science minister said the regulators have reached an "extremely serious" conclusion, adding that his ministry "should promptly respond" to the recommendation.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the ministry should try to resolve the problems as soon as possible.

The potential closure of the reactor could lead to a drastic review of a nuclear policy the government has pursued for decades, given that the majority of the public remains against nuclear restarts following the Fukushima crisis.

The government has been looking to recycle fuel used at nuclear power plants by reprocessing it into mixed-oxide fuel, to be used again both at fast-breeder reactors -- which are designed to produce more plutonium than they consume -- and at many light-water reactors running in resource-scarce Japan.

The fast-breeder reactor has experienced a series of safety problems over the years following a major fire in 1995 caused by a sodium leak.

The fire led to operations being suspended at the reactor until May 2010. It was halted again in August that year after a fuel replacement device for the reactor was accidentally dropped, leaving it inoperable until now.

The JAEA, the operator, failed to conduct an inspection of a massive number of devices at the reactor in 2012. This was followed by the discovery that dozens of monitoring cameras were broken during a safety inspection last year, as well as a leakage of radioactive liquid waste earlier this year after an alarm was ignored for more than a year.

The NRA's recommendation comes after a meeting with an official in charge of the reactor at the science ministry last month, and also with JAEA President Toshio Kodama on Monday to hear ideas on what steps the organization should take to enhance its safety operations.

Japan's nuclear fuel cycle project may come under review

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20151104p2a00m0na016000c.html

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA)'s recommendation that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) be replaced as the operator of the trouble-plagued Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor could lead to a review of Japan's entire nuclear fuel cycle project, it has been learned.

Japan, which is short of natural resources, has promoted the nuclear fuel cycle project whereby spent nuclear fuel is processed and reused for nuclear reactors as part of its national policy.

The troubled reactor, which is located in Fukui Prefecture, is regarded as the project's core facility. While conventional nuclear reactors use water as a coolant, the Monju reactor instead uses liquid sodium for this purpose -- which easily catches fire if exposed to air. As such, far more advanced technology is required for Monju's maintenance. The JAEA repeatedly violated rules in this regard, however, such as failing to inspect many parts of the reactor's devices, which were exposed in 2012.

Alarmed by these blunders, the NRA exercised its authority for the first time to urge that the JAEA be replaced as the operator of the prototype fast-breeder reactor. According to a high-ranking official with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, invoking the use of this authority is regarded as a last resort.

The series of misconduct-related incidents is largely attributable to JAEA's failure to stop the outflow of experienced engineers and technicians. Since no nuclear plant operator other than JAEA has experience with managing nuclear reactors that use liquid sodium as coolant, however, it is expected that it will be difficult to find an entity to take over Monju within six months as sought by the NRA.

Such being the case, the NRA recommendation could spark calls for a review of the entire nuclear fuel cycle project.

About 1 trillion yen in taxpayers' money has been invested on the Monju reactor. Major countries such as the United States, Britain and Germany have abandoned introducing fast-breeder reactors, while other countries including China and Russia are in the process of developing them.

Japan should take the opportunity of the NRA recommendation, therefore, to hold an in-depth debate on whether to go ahead with its nuclear fuel cycle project -- or to abandon it instead.