Problematic 'pluthermal' era

Comment:  No to Nuke Power!

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

EDITORIAL

The 1.18 million-kW No. 3 reactor at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture, which is Japan's first reactor using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) as fuel, attained nuclear criticality last Thursday and started trial operations Monday (commerical operations are to start on Dec. 2). Thus "pluthermal" power generation has begun, but many problems remain unresolved.

MOX fuel, made of plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel and uranium, was primarily intended for use in a fast breeder reactor (FBR), the core of Japan's nuclear fuel-cycle plan. But the prototype FBR Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, has remained shuttered since a major accident in 1995. As a secondary step, the government in 1997 decided to adopt pluthermal power generation, which burns MOX fuel in ordinary light water reactors. But mishaps delayed its start by 10 years.

But pluthermal power generation and the nuclear fuel-cycle plan face many problems. A series of accidents have delayed the startup of a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture.

A study shows that pluthermal power generation only saves 10 to 20 percent of the uranium normally needed for power generation and that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel costs two to four times more than disposing of such fuel underground.

Thus the electricity bill per household will be ¥600 to ¥840 higher annually than if the spent nuclear fuel was buried underground.

In addition, if a reactor uses MOX fuel its control rods will become less effective because the plutonium fission process is less stable than that for uranium. And finally, there remains the problem of how to properly dispose of spent MOX fuel.


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