Construction starts on Japanese used fuel store

Construction has started of an interim used fuel storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori prefecture, Japan. The Recyclable Fuel Storage Centre is expected to begin operating in July 2012 with an initial capacity of 3000 tonnes of used fuel.

Construction has started of an interim used fuel storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori prefecture, Japan. The Recyclable Fuel Storage Centre is expected to begin operating in July 2012 with an initial capacity of 3000 tonnes of used fuel. 

A groundbreaking ceremony for the facility was held on 31 August. It is being constructed by Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co (RFS) - a joint venture of utilities Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and Japan Atomic Power Company (Japco).

Ready, steady, go! RFS president Kubo Makoto signals the start of construction at Mutsu (Image: RFS)

Tepco and Japco formed RFS in November 2005 and in March 2007 it applied to the Japanese government for a licence to construct the facility. On 27 August 2010, the joint venture announced that it had received approval from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Meti) for the design and construction of the Recyclable Fuel Storage Centre.

The Mutsu facility will initially have the capacity to store 3000 tonnes of used fuel, almost half of Japan's total annual nuclear fuel use. However, RFS plans to later increase this capacity to 5000 tonnes.

The facility would store the highly radioactive fuel assemblies from the utilities' boiling water and pressurized water reactors in dry storage casks until they are reprocessed at the Rokkasho plant, under construction about 50 kilometres away. A mix of recovered uranium and plutonium oxides - where the plutonium is never separated - would then be recycled into fresh mixed-oxide nuclear fuel at the J-MOX nuclear fuel manufacturing plant, alongside Rokkasho.

According to Japco, "Used fuel is usually stored on-site at power stations until reprocessing, which may result in large stockpiles. Therefore, an intermediate storage facility is necessary for more efficient off-site management of used fuel and functions as the recycling centre for spent fuel."

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News