Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Safety Implications of MOX Fuel Use In The Borssele Nuclear Power Plant - Lessons From Fukushima

AuteurShaun Burnie, F.Barnaby
1-01-8-20-74.pdf
Datumaugustus 2011
Classificatie 1.01.8.20/74 (BORSSELE - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

Uit de publicatie:

SAFETY IMPLICATIONS OF MOX FUEL USE
IN THE BORSSELE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT –
LESSONS FROM FUKUSHIMA

Shaun Burnie and Dr Frank Barnaby
Commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands
August 3nd 2011

INTRODUCTION
The Fukushima-daiichi nuclear accident has been underway for approaching five 
months. As high levels of radiation continue to be released into the environment 
and thousands of workers struggle to bring the site under control, a full 
understanding of the long-term consequences of the accident remain many months 
and years into the future. What is clear is that the safe operation of nuclear 
power plants in Japan and worldwide, and the effectiveness of international and 
national regulation is exposed as fundamentally flawed. It is in this context 
decisions made to embark on new nuclear operations must be understood.
One of the reactors at Fukushima-daiichi, unit 3, unlike the other reactors at 
the site, operated for six months with a reactor core containing plutonium MOX 
fuel. The implications of the accident and the additional safety issues arising 
from the MOX fuel in unit 3, as already stated are many years away from being 
understood. Yet, only a few days before the beginning of the Fukushima-daiichi 
accident, the Government of the Netherlands granted a licence to the utility EPZ 
to operate its Borssele nuclear reactor with plutonium MOX fuel. The safety case 
that formed the basis of this decision was compiled in the years and months prior 
to the accident. Issues of MOX fuel safety that had long been discussed in Japan, 
but which remain unresolved, have not been debated within Dutch society. This 
report is an attempt to explain the multiple issues concerning MOX fuel use and 
why a decision to proceed with MOX fuel use in the Netherlands is both ill 
conceived and a direct threat to public safety and security.