Japan’s Ikata-3 Set To Begin Operation With MOX Fuel
Written by NucNet
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
The Ikata-3 pressurised water reactor (PWR) unit in Japan is expected to begin operating next month with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel.
The Shikoku Electric Power Company, which operates the three-unit Ikata plant, said unit-3 had been shut down for a periodic inspection on 7 January 2010 and during the outage 50 of the total of 157 fuel assemblies will be replaced with new ones, some of which will be MOX fuel.
The MOX fuel assemblies arrived in Japan from France’s Areva in May 2009. The fuel was fabricated at the Melox plant in southern France. The process involved recycling plutonium from the treatment of Shikoku’s spent fuel at France’s La Hague plant.
Ikata-3 is expected to be reconnected to the grid on February 24 and the periodic inspection should finish one month later.
Ikata-3 went into commercial operation in 1994. There are two other PWR units at the plant, Ikata-1 and Ikata-2, both 538 MW.
