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August 25, 2005

* Breeder reactor waste will be transmuted in fusion reactors

December 18, 2003

India building 500 MWe prototype fast breeder

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India is pushing ahead with the construction of 3,980 MWe of new capacity, including the Kudangulam project where pressurized water reactors will be built and 2,000 MWe of new capacity will be established. A 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor is now being built at Kalpakkam.

[Source: Ms. Jayalalithaa (The Chief Minister, govt of India), speech to 14th annual conference of the Indian Nuclear Society, cited in "Jayalalithaa promises support for nuclear projects", The Hindu, December 18, 2003]

September 30, 2003

Fugen retrospective - future R&D, like breeders, should do better at minimizing costs and producing export sales

Operations at the Fugen advanced thermal converter reactor, located in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, ended in March. It was Japan's first power-generating nuclear reactor created solely with domestically developed technology. It uses mixed oxide fuel (MOX), made of plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel and uranium. Fugen has consumed the largest number of MOX fuel rods of any nuclear plant in the world -- 772 -- since it opened in 1979. The cost of planning and constructing the plant was approximately 450 billion yen. An oversight committee of the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, in a report to be released today, reportedly notes that it costs three times as much to generate electricity at Fugen than it does at an ordinary nuclear reactor.

[Source: Yomiuri Shimbun, "Panel says govt's nuclear reactors waste money", The Daily Yomiuri, September 30, 2003]

August 13, 2003

Japan N-energy policy blueprint lifts MOX, breeder programs

Japan: The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) has released a nuclear energy policy blueprint which calls for continued pursuit of the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel program and the restart of the Monju fast-breeder reactor (FBR). The commission - which operates under the Cabinet Office - is conducting a review of Japan's nuclear energy policy following the plant data falsification issues uncovered in 2002. The blueprint is designed to serve as a basis for a long-term nuclear energy plan to be published by the government in 2004. (Nuclear Market Review, 8 August, p3; SpentFUEL, 11 August, p3; see also News Briefing 97.06-7)

[Source: World Nuclear Association, WNA News Briefing NB03.32-8, August 12, 2003]

July 3, 2003