Japan Press Weekly

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2013 May 8 - 14 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

NRA orders Monju fast breeder reactor to stay offline

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) on May 13 decided a policy to order the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to halt the procedure to restart its Monju fast breeder reactor in Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture.

After it was revealed in November last year that the JAEA extended the interval for required inspections of around 10,000 pieces of equipment at the plant without following proper procedures, the NRA in February conducted an on-site investigation at the plant.

Based on the investigation results, the NRA deemed the operator’s poor management system to be highly problematic and decided to not allow the JAEA to make preparations for resuming the operations of the reactor until all the inspections are completed.

The Monju reactor started generating power in August 1995, but only four months later it was shut down due to a sodium leak accident. In May 2010, the JAEA managed to restart the reactor, but it had to stop running the plant after a few months in the wake of accidents that occurred in the reactor.

The JAEA has indicated its intention to reactivate the reactor by next spring. In order to do so, the operator needs to carry out many tasks, such as the adoption of measures to meet the new safety standard for nuclear power plants and somehow deal with the risk associated with active faults running under the plant.

European countries terminated their fast breeder reactor programs because of technological and economic difficulties, as well as due to the risk of severe accidents. On the other hand, the Japanese government clings to the development of Monju as the main pillar to recycle spent nuclear fuel.