TAKAHAMA, Fukui Prefecture--About 100 protesters shouted anti-nuclear slogans as the first shipment of mixed-oxide fuel since the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant arrived in Japan on June 27.
TAKAHAMA, Fukui Prefecture--About 100 protesters shouted anti-nuclear slogans as the first shipment of mixed-oxide fuel since the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant arrived in Japan on June 27.
The 7,000-ton Pacific Egret, escorted by 10 or so coast guard and police vessels, appeared through the mist in Uchiura Bay in front of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture at 6:30 a.m.
The British-registered ship, carrying mixed-oxide fuel processed in France, docked at a port on the plant premises at 7 a.m. The fuel was in a 6.2-meter-long metal container that weighed 100 tons.
Helicopters and aircraft from media organizations hovered overhead while protesters criticized plans to resume plutonium-thermal (pluthermal) power generation using the fuel.
Mixed-oxide fuel, which contains plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel, is fed to a light water reactor for pluthermal power generation, a key part of Japan’s
The protesters said the government must not forget about victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
“Many evacuees have not been able to return to Fukushima since the accident,” said a 67-year-old woman who used to work at an elementary school near the Takahama plant. “We want to demonstrate our opposition.”
Kansai Electric said the fuel is for the Takahama plant’s No. 3 reactor, where pluthermal power generation was conducted between December 2010 and February 2012.
The fuel was originally scheduled to arrive in 2011, but Kansai Electric delayed the shipment because it could not ensure security following the 2011 disaster. The French side has repeatedly called on the company to accept the fuel.
Kansai Electric plans to apply for restarting the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Takahama plant in July, when new nuclear safety standards take effect. If the restarts are approved, the company plans to resume pluthermal operations.
Hideyuki Ban, co-director of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, said it is wrong to resume pluthermal operations without serious debate at a time the nuclear policy is still under review following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“Pluthermal operations started as a stopgap measure after it became difficult to commercialize a fast-breeder reactor (that was expected to be the central player) in the nuclear fuel recycling program,” Ban said. “The supporting actor took on the lead role before anyone knew it.”
Ban said Japan must abandon its plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel in Aomori Prefecture and dispose plutonium waste because the nation’s massive plutonium stockpile is raising suspicions of weapons applications.
“Japan needs to make it clear that it will not produce any more plutonium,” he said.