Final Exercise Starts for Fuel Removal from Monju Reactor

August 19, 2018

Tokyo- The Japan Atomic Energy Agency started on Sunday a final exercise in preparation for work to remove fuel assemblies from its Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor, which is in the process of being decommissioned.

The JAEA will launch the actual fuel removal within this month if it judges that the work can be conducted safely.

The fuel removal was initially planned to begin late last month, but has been postponed due in part to a series of problems in a final test to examine whether equipment to be used for the work functions properly.

In the final exercise, control rods used instead of real fuel assemblies will be removed from a container filled with sodium, a coolant, using the equipment.

The control rods will be then packed in cans after the sodium is rinsed off, and transported to a water-filled pool.

It has not been decided when the final exercise will end, according to the agency.

The process to decommission Monju, located in the city of Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, is slated to take 30 years.

In the first phase of the lengthy process, a total of 530 fuel assemblies in the reactor and a storage container outside the reactor will be moved to the water pool by December 2022. The JAEA has so far transferred only two fuel assemblies to the pool--one in 2008 and the other in 2009. Jiji Press