(May 6, 1994) Japanese utility firms, which have sent thousands of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel to Europe for reprocessing, said on 20 April they will start shipping back high-level radioactive waste from France early next year.
(411.4068) WISE Amsterdam - The toxic residue, left after plutonium and uranium are extracted from spent fuel, will be sent from a reprocessing plant in La Hague, northern France, in February. an official at the Federation of Electric Power Companies told reporters.
A 1992 shipment of about a tonne of plutonium extracted at the French reprocessing plant sparked a controversy when environmental groups questioned its safety. Japanese anti-nuclear groups opposed importation of the plutonium. The official said the utility firms will be ready to take shipments of the waste on completion of a storage facility for high-level radioactive waste at the Rokkasho-mura nuclear complex in northern Japan next February. The date for the start of shipments was proposed by the French national fuel-reprocessing firm, Cogema, he said.
The official also said the return of the material to Japan was stipulated in the reprocessing contract. He declined to disclose the costs involved. The 1992 plutonium shipment raised concern among countries along the carrier's route that an accident might have serious environmental consequences. The possibility of the weapons-grade material falling into the hands of terrorists also caused concern.
Asked if the waste carrier, a 4,000-tonne British-flagged vessel designed to ship toxic waste, would have a naval escort, the official said it was not necessary. "Unlike plutonium, the waste has no military value and we do not anticipate that chances of hijacking would be very high," he said.
The waste will be solidified in glass-like chunks in 28 stainless steel cannisters, each weighing about 490 kg. About 15 to 20 percent of that weight will be high-level radioactive waste containing iodine, strontium and cobalt, the rest being glass and the weight of the container itself. "Roughly calculated, this shipment will be about two tonnes of high-level radioactive waste," he said.
Japan's 10 major utility firms have shipped over 5,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel to advanced reprocessing facilities in France and Britain since 1978. More than 3,000 cannisters of solidified waste are expected to be shipped back to Japan over the next 10 years. So the first shipment represents less than 1% of the total nuclear waste to be eventually delivered to Japan.
Source: Greenbase, 20 April, 1994
Contact: Citizens' Nuclear Infor-mation Center, 302 Daini Take Bldg., 1-59-14 Higashi-nakano, Nakano-Ku, Tokyo 164.
Tel: +81 3 5330 9520; Fax: +81 3 5330 9530