Monju - more cheating

April 11, 2014

Inspection report falsification suspected at Monju fast-breeder

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140411p2g00m0dm036000c.html 

TSURUGA, Japan (Kyodo) -- The operator of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture is suspected of falsifying its inspection report to regulators as they later found new pieces of equipment that had not been inspected there, Nuclear Regulation Authority sources said Thursday.

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency's Monju reactor -- which is designed to use extracted plutonium and uranium to produce more fuel than it consumes, while generating electricity -- has been effectively banned from operating since last May following the revelation of lax safety inspections at the facility in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.

The discovery and the agency's alleged failure to report it to the regulators are all but certain to keep the reactor from operating for an extended period of time although the Monju project is expected to remain alive under the government energy policy to be finalized soon.

In November 2012, Monju reactor equipment was found not to have been inspected in about 10,000 cases.

The operator said in its report last September that while it had failed to inspect reactor equipment in about 14,000 cases, it finished inspecting all pieces of equipment, or roughly 47,500 in all, that were subject to its investigation, including those which had not been inspected previously.

But when the regulators inspected about 80 pieces of reactor equipment last month, at least nine that were related to the Monju reactor's secondary cooling circuit had not been inspected by the operator, the sources said. The operator had not reported it.

The operator has acknowledged its failure to report, according to the sources. An official of the operator declined to comment on the matter, however.

The sources said the operator also made improper corrections in its inspection records in more than 100 sections, a deviation from the operator's internal regulation.

While the regulators had planned to inspect 700 pieces of equipment last month, they stopped doing so after inspecting about 80 of them, because they found many that had not been inspected and many corrections in the operator's inspection records.

The Monju project has been regarded as central to realizing the country's ideal nuclear fuel cycle, which aims to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and reuse the extracted plutonium and uranium as reactor fuel.

But the reactor has remained largely offline since first achieving criticality in 1994 due to a series of problems, casting doubt on the project's viability.

April 11, 2014(Mainichi Japan)