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One-third of monitoring cameras at Monju reactor malfunctioning

16 Comments

About one-third of security cameras at the troubled Monju fast breeder reactor facility in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, are not working properly.

According to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which runs the facility, of the 180 security cameras, 54 are not recording any footage at all, and or are unable to rotate right or left as necessary to properly monitor the facility the establishment, TV Asahi reported Monday.

The glitch is the latest in a series that have plagued the reactor which remains offline indefinitely.

The Monju reactor's future has been in limbo for some time. Last year, the Nuclear Regulation Authority ordered the Japan Atomic Energy Agency not to restart the reactor and instructed the company to improve its safety measures. The trouble-plagued next-generation test reactor has been cited for numerous safety violations.

Monju was designed to generate more fuel than it consumes via nuclear chain reaction, and was intended to be at the core of a program that would reuse spent fissile materials in a country that has few natural resources of its own.

But its complex technology has been plagued with problems and set-backs that have left it idling for more than a decade, with little return on the initial 1 trillion yen construction outlay and the 50 million yen it uses every day in running costs, even while shut down.

Complicating matters is the fact that there are faults beneath Monju. It has not yet been ascertained if the eight crush zones are active faults.

The previous government tried to terminate Monju under its nuclear phase-out plan, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government quickly reversed course as it pushed to restart commercial reactors that have been idle since a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Japan built Monju as a "dream reactor" to fulfill its energy needs, with the reactor meant to be a centerpiece of a self-sustainable fuel cycle. To complete the cycle, Japan has been building the Rokkasho fuel recycling plant in northern Japan to extract uranium and plutonium from spent fuel and fabricate hybrid fuel made from the two radioactive elements.

But with both Monju and Rokkasho having technical problems, Japan has built up a large stockpile of plutonium extracted overseas and at home, causing international proliferation concerns.

Monju successfully generated power using MOX — mixed oxide fuel, a mix of uranium and plutonium — in 1995, but months later, a massive leakage of cooling sodium caused a fire. Monju had another test run in 2010 but stopped again after a fuel exchanger fell into the reactor vessel.

© Japan Today/AFP

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16 Comments
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Why am I not surprised?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

50,000,000 yen a day for a reactor that has never actually worked. That's 18 billion yen a year to keep it offline. Unbelievable.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"It's under control!" bwahaha!! "Japan has the highest safety standards in the world for nuclear power!" Bwahaha!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Just another example of cheap and safe nuclear energy, eh?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It has not yet been ascertained if the eight crush zones are active faults.

What a blatant lie. An "active fault" is one where there is evidence of movement in the last 10,000 to 100,000 years. Several of these faults have been shown to have moved as recently as the 1995 Kobe earthquake (6.9).

This should read, "if all eight crush zones are active faults" ... which completely misses the point. If even one is active then it is sufficient to close down the plant, one does not need them all to be active.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

And who makes the cameras?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The previous government tried to terminate Monju under its nuclear phase-out plan, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government quickly reversed course ...

Why did Abe reverse direction and decide to keep this money sucking monolith?

Do any politicians here have to be accountable for their policies/decisions? Why has this not angered the populace?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Stupid stupid stupid! I am tired of typing these complements to the imbeciles who are supposedly running these nukes WTF!

If they cant even handle keeping these camera's working then there is no way in HELL they can operate nuke plants & we have seen umpteen incidents proving that point & when you figure for every problem we hear about there is like 3-5times as many that we DONT hear about.

Clearly NO ONE is in charge, no one is in the driver seat wrt nuke plants, damn I am getting those dreams of leaving these isles, this country is so utterly screwed its mind boggling!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Even if the Japanese people get angry, would it change anything? Look at the recent protests for example, didn't change a thing.

If already 1 out of 3 cameras are malfunctioning im scared to think what else is malfunctioning there or any other reactor for that matter.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

1 out of 3 cameras record nothing. Thank god if they did record anything it most likely would be the unfolding of a catastrophe. An industry bemused and befuddled unable to open a door with out hitting themselves in the head.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

These cameras most likely did not stop working all at once because of a sudden technical glitch. The cameras probably gradually broke down and were not replaced or repaired - a cost based decision. Nuclear power is not a place to cut costs by cutting corners - a requirement dictated by the high cost of worst case scenario.

Fast breeder reactors work at high pressure and are capable of meltdown if uncontrolled. Meltdown is the ultimate worst case scenario with literally incalculable costs. There exists no insurance company on earth that would and could cover the costs of the worst case scenario so a cost based commercial business model is not possible. Not that all human endeavors must be commercially viable to be worthwhile - but it does prove that nuclear power is not compatible with the same kind of cost cutting reasoning as used by other industries.

There are several projects underway worldwide to develop Thorium based nuclear power - these work at a lower pressure such that meltdown cannot occur in the worst scenario where the system cannot be controlled. Optimistically, this would be not simply a marginal improvement in safety, it would be a breakthrough because the system would actually be insurable, and a commercial business model would then be possible. It's not there yet but it is something worth aiming for.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

One or two cameras out of 180 I could understand, but 54?! Going to have to agree with the masses here, this reactor is nowhere near ready for a restart. Does Japan have a "Lemon Law" for reactors? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law

0 ( +0 / -0 )

wikipedia: As of June 2011, the reactor has only generated electricity for one hour since its first testing two decades prior. As of the end of 2010, total funds spent on the reactor amounted to ¥1.08 trillion. An estimated ¥160-170 billion would be needed to continue to operate the reactor for another 10 years. ... It employs 368 workers.

That's a pretty expensive hour.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The implications regarding attention to maintenance are very scary.

The political implications of this plant generating only one hour of electricity since its construction are even scarier and would be so in any country.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

ArtistAtLargeOct. 15, 2014 - 07:12AM JST The implications regarding attention to maintenance are very scary.

I spoke with an engineer who worked at one of the nuclear plants a couple of years ago, and what he had to say was very, very scary. He spoke of leaks being covered up, routine maintenance not being done, paperwork being forged (in the sense that maintenance reports were written up for work that had never been done) and a host of other problems. This problem is more wide-spread that anyone would believe.

If I can get this information over a couple of drinks with someone I met barely 30 minutes before then it is a sad statement on the quality of investigative reporting in Japan. It means that the newspapers simply aren't doing their jobs.

The political implications of this plant generating only one hour of electricity since its construction are even scarier and would be so in any country.

Here I disagree. The Monju plant was an experiment, and was written off as R&D from its conception. It was always a speculative investment. If it worked it had the potential to revolutionise nuclear power generation and greatly reduce costs. If it didn't work ... well, that's the risk. It didn't work, they kept trying and then they canned the project.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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