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May 16, 2013

 

Editorial: No choice but to decommission prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20130516p2a00m0na003000c.html 

 

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has decided to order the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) not to go ahead with preparations to resume operations at its trouble-plagued prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.


The JAEA acknowledged in November last year that it had failed to check about 10,000 parts of the reactor in its inspections. The NRA further found in a subsequent inspection of Monju that the JAEA had failed to examine other key devices of the reactor, such as emergency diesel power generators, and concluded that the agency had not established a sufficient system to ensure safety of the reactor. As such, the authority's order is only natural as the failure to thoroughly examine the reactor is unworthy of a nuclear facility operator.


We have insisted that the government's so-called nuclear fuel cycle policy of extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and burning it in fast-breeder reactors has failed. The NRA has confirmed that the safety culture of the operator of the Monju reactor, which is the core of the nuclear fuel cycle policy, has deteriorated. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared that his administration will continue the nuclear fuel cycle policy, but the government should promptly decommission Monju and put an end to the nuclear fuel cycle policy.


Monju was shut down after sodium that leaked from the reactor caught fire in December 1995 shortly after its operations began. It is difficult to control a fast-breeder reactor and to respond to the accident as sodium that is used as coolant can easily react to water and burn intensely. The operator of the plant was also criticized for covering up video footage of the fire.


Monju was reactivated in May 2010, about 14 1/2 years after the accident, but operations came to a halt again after a key device had dropped inside the reactor. Experts have also pointed to the possibility that an active fault lies within the premises of the facility, and the NRA is poised to conduct an on-the-spot inspection.


Although more than 1 trillion yen has been spent on the project, there are no prospects that fast-breeder reactors can be put into practical use in the foreseeable future. Approximately 20 billion yen is necessary each year to maintain the reactor although it has been suspended. Many other developed countries have abandoned such projects mainly because of technological difficulties.


The completion of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant under construction in the Aomori Prefecture village of Rokkasho -- another key facility in the nuclear fuel cycle project -- has been postponed 19 times.


JAEA President Atsuyuki Suzuki has also come under fire for remarking that it is inevitable that mistakes will happen after it came to light that the organization failed to examine many parts of the reactor. Suzuki, who specializes in the nuclear fuel cycle, previously served as chairman of the now defunct Nuclear Safety Commission, and was appointed as JAEA chief in 2010 after applying for the position publicly advertised by the agency.


The JAEA is an organization responsible for research on Japan's nuclear energy safety. Therefore, one cannot help but wonder whether Suzuki's remarks are unworthy of a leader of such an organization who is supposed to be fully aware of the importance of nurturing a culture of safety. His remarks have given the public the impression that the culture of the so-called "nuclear power village," in which government officials, utilities and nuclear technology experts collude to promote nuclear power, has remained unchanged since the accident at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011.


Other operators of nuclear facilities as well as government regulators should draw a lesson from the JAEA's failure to examine many parts of the Monju reactor and make efforts to firmly establish their own safety measures.

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