Kansai Electric begins loading MOX into transport cask.

June 21, 2002

At 7.30 am Friday morning the loading of the eight plutonium MOX assemblies began at the Takahama nuclear reactor.

As with many things to do with the deliberately falsified MOX delivered by BNFL, this loading operation is unique. Normally when Kansai prepares to ship its nuclear waste spent fuel from the reactor site, the entire operation is conducted underwater.

However for this operation, Kansai have had to construct and install new equipment so that the operation can be done 'dry'. In particular this has required designing a loading mechanism - the so called 'fuel elevator' - which is intended to guide each fuel assembly. This is the vertical steel object in the centre right of the picture. At the bottom of the elevator is the Excellox cask which is located in the spent fuel pit, in the vertical position on its end.

The elevator is also supposed to protect the workers - seen in picture - whose job it is to load each assembly. The MOX assembly contains plutonium and uranium, as well as contaminants such as americium-241. As a result of this MOX ageing over the past few years there are higher levels of radiation being emitted from the assembly. As can be seen from the photograph, Kansai Electric's loading operation is not that sophisticated. In contrast to the tens of hundreds of millions of yen and pounds involved in this MOX transport, they appear to be relying upon a rather fragile looking scaffolding system.

The photograph reminds me of the images from the Tokai-mura accident in Japan in 1999 when medium-enriched uranium was poured by hand from a bucket into a tank. Perhaps no coincidence since the day this MOX arrived in Japan - October 1st 1999, the Tokai-mura accident was still underway. As with the workers at Tokai-mura who were deliberately misled as to the nature of the dangerous material they were handling, it is worth considering how many of the workers seen in this picture are aware of the risks and dangers posed by the plutonium contained inside the MOX assemblies ?

As with BNFL's poor technology and working standards that created the falsified MOX in the first place, the photograph is a rare insight into the dangerous world of the nuclear industry generally and Kansai Electric -Japan's second largest nuclear utility - in particular. it rightly does not inspire confidence.

Shaun.Burnie@ams.greenpeace.org

The schedule for Kansai Electric's loading of MOX is detailed below:

1. Unloading of the transport cask from the ship.
2. Transporting the cask within the compound.
3. After carrying the cask in the fuel handling building, it will be raised vertically.
4. Moving the cask into the contamination removal pit Contamination removal pit.
5. Remove the cover from the cask and fit a positioning tool.
6. Move the MOX fuel from the spent fuel pit into the new fuel elevator.
7. Store the MOX fuel into the MOX new fuel handling device.
8. Store the MOX fuel into the transport cask.
9. Remove the positioning tool, then put the cover onto the transport cask.
10. Confirm the airtightness of the cask.
11. After removal from the contamination removal pit, the cask will be pushed over sideways.
12. Transporting the cask within the compound.
13. Cask will be loaded onto the ship.

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