Japan Ships 1st Spent Nuclear Fuel to Aomori Plant, Reports Say

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Japan Ships 1st Spent Nuclear Fuel to Aomori Plant, Reports Say
  
Aomori, Japan, Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japan made its first shipment 
of spent nuclear fuel to a plant in northern Aomori prefecture 
designed to extract plutonium for reprocessing into fuel for light-
water reactors, media reports said. 

A transport ship carrying 24 tons of spent fuel docked at 
Mutsuogawara port in Rokkasho bay, where about 200 protesters had 
gathered, according to an official of the reprocessing plant, Agence 
France Presse reported. 

Plans for the plant to begin accepting shipments last spring were 
delayed in part because of a September 1999 accident in Tokaimura, 
Ibaraki prefecture. It was the world's second-worst nuclear accident 
after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine. 


The Aomori plant, operated by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., is designed to 
combine plutonium with uranium oxide for light-water reactors. 
Reprocessing is scheduled to begin in July 2005, by which time 1,600 
tons of spent fuel will be stored at the plant, Jiji Press reported. 

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