Agency gears up to retrieve device fallen inside Monju reactor

This happened before the Earthquake, looks like there were problems going on before the ones we are hearing about now.

Monju is a fast breeder reactor that uses sodium as coolant, which catches on fire on contact with air. It uses MOX-fuel.

3.3-tonne, 12-meter "In‐Vessel Transfer Machine" fell into the reactor vessel on August 26, 2010. The manager at the plant in charge of fuel exchange committed suicide in February this year.

more info here
ex-skf.blogspot.com...

TSURUGA (Kyodo) -- The Japan Atomic Energy Agency began preparatory engineering work Tuesday to set up equipment it will use to retrieve a device that fell inside the vessel of its prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju in Fukui Prefecture last August, agency officials said.

The agency aims to collect the cylindrical 3.3-ton device together with part of the vessel's upper lid by mid-June to get the reactor back to normal by autumn, allowing the resumption of a test run of the 280,000-kilowatt prototype, the officials said.

But it is unknown when the test run will begin at the unit on the Sea of Japan coast as Prime Minister Naoto Kan has declared a review of Japan's basic energy plan following the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

After the Aug. 26 accident, the agency tried in October to recover the device used in fuel exchange but failed as it had become misshapen, preventing its retrieval through the upper lid.

I've said it once, and I'll repeat it until voice ceases to work...

The manager at the plant in charge of fuel exchange committed suicide in February this year.

Ok, that opens a whole new level of "WTF!" Sounds like an act of extreme guilt and desperation, or the "offing" of someone who didn't "agree" with what was going on at the plant. You could say this happened because of personal reasons, but it REALLY scares me to think it's tied to what was/is going on at the reactor!

One thing a lot of people don't realize is that a LMFBR is one of the few designs that can actually generate an atomic explosion. The fuel core uses highly enriched Uranium so it is easier for the molten mass to go critical in a meltdown.

Originally posted by RoyalBlue

The manager at the plant in charge of fuel exchange committed suicide in February this year.

Ok, that opens a whole new level of "WTF!" Sounds like an act of extreme guilt and desperation, or the "offing" of someone who didn't "agree" with what was going on at the plant. You could say this happened because of personal reasons, but it REALLY scares me to think it's tied to what was/is going on at the reactor!

I go with guilt related to the major screwup that happened at the reactor under his watch which makes it his responsibility. Why does it scare you? That may not be consistent with western culture, but in Japan's culture, suicide in cases of extreme guilt isn't that strange, is it?

In fact I saw people predicting there would also be suicides eventually over guilt from the Fukushima Daiichi incident. I think the guiltiest parties there are the ones who approved that design for that location, didn't even design the facility to withstand a 9.0 earthquake, and didn't anticipate a tsunami from a 9.0 earthquake as a possibility, all of which happened 30 years ago. There were even some resignations at GE over that design, so the guys who resigned don't have anything to feel guilty about.

Then about 6 years ago in 2005, the Japanese nuclear industry referenced a 1990 US NRC report saying that the biggest risk of disaster was from losing power and the backups not working, which could happen in a tsunami. Other than citing the report, and building some emergency response centers of questionable value, Japan apparently did nothing even once they became aware of the risk.

One thing a lot of people don't realize is that a LMFBR is one of the few designs that can actually generate an atomic explosion. The fuel core uses highly enriched Uranium so it is easier for the molten mass to go critical in a meltdown.

I didn't know that, I'll have to do some searching to learn more about that.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

The part that scares me is the possibility of what is sooo bad that he committed suicide over, that we don't know about yet, like what are they hiding?

reply to post by RoyalBlue
I see, thanks for the reply.

Well I'm not too worried about that being the reason he committed suicide. But I'm always worried there are things about nuclear accidents we aren't being told, because history shows us we are rarely told everything, at least not until years later in some cases.

The screw-up he made by itself is big enough to commit suicide over, based on my limited understanding of Japanese culture.

This thread needs bumped... I've never even heard about Monju until finding it on a random video on youtube during a Fukushima info search.



That video discusses Monju as well as nuke plant problems in general. It's absolute insanity that any place like Monju would even be designed and built. Instead of based on water, it is based on LIQUID SODIUM METAL, which reacts violently with water, and holding much more dangerous material per each plant, it's like a giant ticking nuclear bomb.

It has generated a single hour of electricity in 20 years. What a bargain!