Japan shuts down first commercial nuclear reactor

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

This should be of general interest to the Radsafe members...

TOKYO, March 31 (Reuters) - Japan's oldest commercial nuclear reactor
ended 31 years of operation on Tuesday, leaving thousands of tonnes of
radioactive waste, but also a valuable legacy of technical experience
in atomic power generation.

Japan Atomic Power Co officials said they shut down the
166,000-kilowatt unit at a plant overlooking the Pacific Ocean in
Tokai, 110 km (66 miles) northeast of Tokyo, on Tuesday afternoon.

``The last control rod slid into the reactor pressure vessel at around
3.30 p.m., and that was that,'' a company spokesman said.

The Tokai reactor will now become the first Japanese nuclear power
plant to begin the long, complicated and costly process of
decommissioning and demolition.

The reactor was the only one in Japan to use graphite as its moderator
and carbon dioxide gas as its coolant, a design Japan Atomic officials
said made it cost twice as much to operate and maintain as other
commercial reactors and which prompted its closure.

The other 51 commercial nuclear reactors in Japan use water as a
moderator and coolant. Nuclear reactors supply about one-third of the
country's electric power.

Japan Atomic plans to starts the 25 billion yen ($189 million)
demolition of the Tokai reactor by first removing 16,000 fuel rods
from its system -- a process expected to take about three years.

The plant will then be left to sit for up to 10 years in order to
reduce radioactivity before it is dismantled. Demolition is expected
to produce 23,000 tonnes of low-level radioactive waste.

Spent nuclear fuel removed from the plant will be sent to Britain to
be reprocessed into uranium and plutonium fuel as well as radioactive
waste. Both fuel and waste will eventually be shipped back to Japan.

The vitrified radioactive waste will be cooled in canisters for 30 to
50 years at a storage facility in Aomori Prefecture on the northern
tip of Japan's main island before being permanently buried several
hundred metres (yards) below ground.

The location of the permanent storage site has yet to be fixed and its
selection is expected to be a difficult task as a series of accidents
and ensuing cover-ups in the last few years have seriously undermined
public trust in the nuclear industry.

Aomori Governor Morio Kimura this month barred a ship carrying
high-level radioactive waste destined for the prefecture's storage
site from a nearby port until he was given central government
assurances about the safety of the cargo.

Aomori residents and local authorities are worried the prefecture
might become a permanent home for the nuclear waste. 


------------------
Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax:    (714) 668-3111
  
sandyfl@earthlink.net
sperle@icnpharm.com

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