Frédéric Patalagoity,
President and Managing Director
AREVA Japan
Urban Toranomon, Bldg. 5F
1-16-4 Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo 105-0001
Japan
July 21, 2016
Dear Frédéric Patalagoity,
We are writing to you to express our disappointment and concerns over the use of AREVA produced MOX fuel in Japanese nuclear power plants.
As you know we wrote to you on January 28th of this year to request details over the quality of plutonium mixed oxide fuel supplied to Japan, specifically Kansai Electric. We have yet to receive a response to this letter (also attached to this letter).
As you will be aware the Ikata 3 reactor is due to restart operations shortly. Sixteen assemblies of MOX fuel supplied by AREVA in 2009 (as part of 21 assembly delivery) have been loaded into the reactor. As with the fuel supplied to Takahama, there are major doubts over the safety of the MOX fuel about to be used in Ikata, including quality control issues related to the thermal stability of the fuel.
We are alarmed by the lack of transparency over issues of fundamental nuclear safety demonstrated by AREVA’s lack of response. At a time of unprecedented crisis for the global business operations of AREVA, failure to provide information that is in the public interest and that of nuclear safety is both unacceptable and poor business practice. Once again we calling on AREVA to release immediately the actual quality control data for MOX fuel assemblies supplied to both Kansai Electric’s Takahama 3&4 reactors, and Shikoku Electric’s Ikata 3 reactor.
Yours sincerely,
Shaun Burnie
Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany
Aileen Mioko Smith
Executive Director,
Green Action
Kyoto
Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director,
Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center
Tokyo
Hideyuki Koyama
Director,
Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Ohi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai)
Osaka
PDF: Letter to AREVA Japan Calling for Disclosure of MOX Fuel Quality Control Data, 2016-07-21