30 June 2010
STATEMENT
We Protest MOX Fuel Arrival at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant Units 3 and 4
To Makoto YAGI, President of Kansai Electric
Issued by: Green Action (Kyoto, Japan) and Mihama-no-Kai (Osaka, Japan)
For immediate release.
Contact: +81-90-3620-9251 (Smith)
Today, 30 June, Kansai Electric, ignoring the many voices of protest, brought MOX (mixed oxide) fuel into the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 and Unit 4. Many countries around the world have expressed their concern and protest against the numerous Japanese plutonium shipments from France. However, Kansai Electric, totally ignored these voices of concern, forced through this shipment. We strongly protest this shipment and the arrival of MOX fuel at Takahama.
The MOX fuel that was fabricated at the AREVA Melox plant is of inferior quality, containing impurity levels that would not even pass safety standards for uranium fuel. Burning plutonium in this way at nuclear power reactors that are designed to burn uranium fuel will only further increase the probability of an accident.
Moreover, the spent MOX fuel waste that will be produced as a result of Kansai Electric burning this fuel will be nuclear waste that will have nowhere to go. This ultra-hazardous nuclear waste will remain indefinitely, over an extremely long period of time, at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant spent fuel pools.
The Japanese government has stated that policy measures deciding on how this fuel will be managed will be deliberated from “sometime around 2010.” However, commercial operation of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, a prerequisite for this deliberation, is not moving forward. Active tests at Rokkasho are at a complete standstill due to intractable problems at its vitrification facility. Another prerequisite for deliberation of policy measures for spent MOX fuel is operation of Monju. Although Monju was restarted after being shut down for over 14 years due to a sodium leak and fire accident in 1995, repeated problems occurred immediately after this May’s restart. The prerequisites for starting deliberations on spent MOX fuel are now even further out of reach. If Kansai Electric’s pluthermal program (MOX fuel use program) goes ahead in full force under these circumstances, the town of Takahama is destined to become a nuclear waste dump.
The pluthermal program producing spent nuclear fuel which has no where to go is, in the first place, in violation of the national government’s nuclear regulatory law.
Moreover, indefinite long term safe storage of spent MOX fuel in spent fuel pools is not guaranteed. In the USA, at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in 2005, and the Salem nuclear power plant in 2002, the environment around the plants were radioactively contaminated due to leakage from spent nuclear fuel pools at these plants. Small quantities leaked from the pools over a long period of time, as much as 5 years, contaminating the underground and groundwater. Levels of radioactive tritium reached as much as 126 times the federally allowed safety levels, becoming a serious social issue.
Kansai Electric’s monitoring of its spent fuel pools basically is only concerned with maintaining water levels within the pools, and there is danger that small quantities leaking from the pools could lead to underground contamination and contamination of the surrounding sea. In fact, in Japan, leaks have been detected from spent fuel pools at the Ikata nuclear power plant Unit 3 in Ehime prefecture, and at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture.
Extremely long-term storage of spent MOX fuel in the spent fuel pools of Fukui nuclear power plants will not only make these local areas de facto nuclear dumps, there is danger that leakage from these spent fuel pools could lead to the environment of the Wakasa region of Fukui prefecture being contaminated with radioactive materials. It will damage citizens hopes of leaving this rich and beautiful environment for generations to come.
We are opposed to the loading of MOX fuel at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 during the October outage. We will continue to stengthen the links between Fukui and Kansai citizens and work to stop implementation of the pluthermal (MOX fuel utilization) program at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3.