Nuclear fuel cycle in a stalemate

November 5, 2015

Advisory to replace Monju operator suggests stalemate in nuclear fuel cycle policy

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20151105p2a00m0na015000c.html

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has decided to advise the science minister to find an alternative operator for the trouble-plagued Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, in a first move of its kind by the nuclear watchdog.

The advisory, to be issued to Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hiroshi Hase, will also call for a drastic review of the Monju operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in case a new operator cannot be found. The move raises the possibility of a major overhaul of the country's nuclear fuel cycle policy, including the decommissioning of the Monju reactor itself.

In the meantime, if the plutonium used as fuel for the reactor has nowhere to go, the country will be faced with global concerns for its potential diversion of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, causing an impasse to the country's nuclear energy policy.

"We will respond swiftly in light of the advisory. We take it as an extremely grave judgment," science minister Hase told a press conference on Nov. 4, following the NRA's decision to issue the advisory earlier the same day. However, it is difficult to find a new entity to operate the Monju reactor, which uses sodium coolant and requires highly sophisticated nuclear technology.

"I have no idea who would be the ideal operator (of Monju) as desired by the NRA," said a high-ranking science ministry official in charge of the JAEA on Nov. 5.

The NRA's advisory -- based on the Act for Establishment of the Nuclear Regulation Authority -- is regarded as a "last resort," with which the NRA can call on other ministries and agencies for improvement when the safety of nuclear facilities is not ensured, according to a senior science ministry official. The NRA's predecessor, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, was not entitled to such an advisory right, and the latest advisory is the first to be issued by the NRA since its inauguration in September 2012.

In explaining the reason for exercising the right to such an advisory, the NRA pointed out that: the JAEA, which cannot perform maintenance on Monju, is not capable of running the reactor; the advisory is aimed at making the science ministry aware of the essential problems it faces with no solution in sight; and the deterioration of equipment and human technology cannot be left untreated, among other reasons.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a Nov. 4 news conference, "We cannot leave it up to the JAEA" to operate the Monju reactor. Regarding the possibility of the reactor's decommissioning, he said, "The science minister (who oversees the Monju operator) will make a decision after deliberating the issue from various viewpoints."

Following the revelation in November 2012 that the JAEA failed to check a large number of devices of the Monju reactor in its inspections, the science ministry has led JAEA's reform by dispatching leading ministry employees to the JAEA and picking its senior officials from the private sector. "The JAEA, which has accumulated research results, is the one to take charge of such a new type of reactor as Monju," the ministry stated.

Masaaki Tanaka, director-general of the science ministry's Research and Development Bureau, who was summoned by the NRA on Oct. 21 this year, emphasized that the JAEA has transformed itself to be able to detect problems on its own. NRA Chairman Tanaka, however, refuted, "The period when the agency just needed to move ahead is over."

In response to the NRA advisory, Hiroki Takaya, director of the science ministry's International Nuclear and Fusion Energy Affairs Division, said on Nov. 4 that the ministry will look into picking a new operator for Monju from scratch without ruling out the possibility of assigning manufacturers, power companies or even foreign businesses. However, nuclear plant manufacturers and power companies -- which are busy responding to the new safety regulations adopted in the wake of the Fukushima meltdowns -- see no benefit from operating the Monju reactor, whose commercial use is nowhere in sight. "We have no prospects of finding a company that can take on the operation of the reactor," confided a senior science ministry official.

While there is a possibility of setting up a new organization to which JAEA employees in charge of Monju are transferred to take care of the reactor, NRA chief Tanaka warned against such a move, saying, "The efforts (to ensure safety) must be substantial."

The science ministry has no option in mind to get rid of Monju, which is the centerpiece of the country's nuclear fuel cycle policy. The ministry's Research and Development Bureau chief Tanaka said, "We want to resume operations (of Monju) somehow. We have no choice but to concentrate on revamping the maintenance and management system in accordance with the NRA's conditions."

Change of Monju reactor operator could spell end to Japan's nuclear fuel cycle dreams

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20151105p2a00m0na011000c.html

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) decided on Nov. 4 to call for a new operator for the deeply troubled Monju fast breeder reactor -- a move that could signal the end of Japan's decades-long attempt to create a nuclear "fuel cycle" and send shockwaves through the country's long-term energy policy.

NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka stated during an Oct. 21 news conference that the authority "won't say that it's all right to take safety issues lightly just because there's an (energy) policy in place," declaring that safety has top priority in any decisions about the Monju Nuclear Power Plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. He also said that he was not fixated on continuing a national energy policy premised on the Monju project.

The plant's lone experimental reactor is a "fast-breeder" model that runs on mixed plutonium-uranium "MOX" fuel, and is designed to produce more plutonium -- and thus more fuel material -- than it consumes even as it generates energy. MOX fuel is refined from plutonium and uranium waste produced by conventional reactors, and using it in both regular and the Monju reactors promised to help deal simultaneously with Japan's nuclear waste problem and provide for the resource-poor country's energy needs. The Monju "dream reactor" is, in other words, an essential part of the fuel cycle project, which is in turn a central pillar of the government's long-term national energy strategy.

Despite being out of operation for most of its 20-year life due to accidents and scandals, plans to move ahead with the Monju reactor project have not changed, not even since the triple-meltdown at the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear plant put the future of nuclear power in Japan in doubt. In April 2014, the government added developing technology to reduce highly radioactive waste to the Monju project objectives under the national energy policy. The Monju fast breeder project has already cost Japan more than 1 trillion yen, and has yet to produce any meaningful results, and yet the government looks poised to prolong its life.

With the Nov. 4 NRA recommendation to take the Monju plant out of the hands of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), however, the reactor could eventually be decommissioned. That would effectively end Japan's attempts to make fast breeder reactors a practical technology, and could deal a fatal blow to the fuel cycle policy.

Should the fuel cycle dream come crashing down to earth, Japan's plutonium stores could spark international concerns over nuclear proliferation. Japan already has some 47 metric tons of plutonium tucked away both inside and outside the country -- enough fissile material for several thousand nuclear warheads. Using concentrated plutonium into MOX fuel and plugging it into fast-breeder reactors would be an effective way to deal with the deadly material.

An alternate is the "pluthermal" program, or using MOX fuel in regular reactors. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan had planned to have 16-18 reactors across the country using MOX fuel by fiscal 2015. However, only four reactors were running on the fuel before the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and at present only one -- the No. 3 unit at the Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture -- looks to have any prospect of doing so.

The international community has never made a great fuss about Japan's enormous plutonium stockpile on the understanding that it would eventually be used in MOX-fuelled reactors like Monju. If the Monju reactor is shut down for good, the justification for this county's plutonium hoard will go with it, potentially sparking global criticism that all this fissile material may end up in bombs. From an international perspective, then, it is difficult indeed -- maybe impossible -- to kill the Monju project. (By Yui Shuzo, Science & Environment Department)