BNFL shipment: Pacific Pintail
Japan's largest nuclear utility has announced that a safety cover-up at its nuclear power plants has been going on for decades - a devastating blow to an already embattled nuclear industry, with global implications.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that there had been a failure dating back to the 1980's and through the 1990's to conduct vital safety inspections at their nuclear reactors and that results of tests had been deliberately falsified.
TEPCO is the world's third largest nuclear power operator, and a key potential customer of BNFL's MOX fuel manufactured at its plant in Sellafield, Cumbria.
MOX reactor found to be seriously corroded
It has emerged that the reactor into which TEPCO was planning to introduce controversial plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in September has serious corrosion in a component of the reactor.
As a result of the news, TEPCO President Nobuya Minami announced the indefinite postponement of these plans to introduce MOX, at an emergency press conference in Tokyo last night.
A devastating blow for the British nuclear industry
The scandal comes as bankrupt BNFL is shipping a cargo of rejected plutonium MOX fuel back from Japan. The fuel was rejected after it was exposed that BNFL had lied to another Japanese nuclear firm over vital safety data. BNFL is making the shipment, and the UK Government has agreed to a compensation package of over 100 million sterling to Japan, in expectation that Japan would sign further contracts for MOX with BNFL.
With the program now effectively frozen in Japan they will find it impossible to move ahead with their MOX business. The shipment of rejected plutonium MOX from Japan to the UK has already been vehemently opposed by 80 governments so far. These governments, led by the Pacific Island nations, have been reassured by the Japanese nuclear industry and British Nuclear Fuels that the shipment is safe and poses no risk. The assurances have been rejected by the en-route states, which have condemned them for using their oceans for nuclear transports.
It is almost beyond belief that the company at the centre of this scandal, Tokyo Electric, in a matter of weeks was planning to load plutonium into one of its corroded reactors. The safety implications of using MOX even without major safety violations and corrosion are huge, with serious cracking they are beyond imagination. If it was not the nuclear industry it would be unbelievable. And this is just the start of the scandal
