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Operator of Disaster-Hit Uranium Plant Gets License Revoked By Makiko Tazaki
TOKYO, Feb 3 (AFP) - Tokyo plans to revoke the operating license of uranium plant operator JCO Co. in an unprecedented sanction following the country's worst nuclear disaster, an official said Thursday. "We notified the company today that we plan to cancel the license and that we will hold a hearing on the plan," said Shigeaki Shiraishi, nuclear safety official from the science and technology agency. Revoking a license is the toughest form of administrative punishment under the law controlling nuclear reactors and fuels, and has never previously been applied, the official said.
The decision would remove the larger of Japan's two producers of a form of higher enriched uranium for light water nuclear reactors. The other, Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co. Ltd., said it planned to increase output to help compensate. The companies convert a gas form of higher enriched uranium, UF6, into a powder form U02, experts said.
JCO officials will state their case at a science and technology agency hearing on March 13, said the nuclear safety official. "We will make a final decision after the hearing," he said.
In the written notification, the agency blamed the company for bypassing legal procedures in the September 30 accident in Tokaimura, 120 km (74 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the official said.
Three JCO workers put an excessive amount - 2.4 kilograms (five pounds) - of uranium into a stainless steel bucket, seeing a blue flash as they set off a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The workers were seriously injured in the accident, classified as the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. One of them, 35-year-old Hisashi Ouchi, died in December. The leak exposed a total of 439 workers and residents to radiation, according to the agency's latest tally. The figure was almost four times higher than initial estimates.
JCO president Hiroharu Kitani told a news conference the company "solemnly accepts the situation." He added, "For the time being we would like to do our best to take responsibility for the accident, proceeding with compensation to victims and upgrading safety measures."
If the license is revoked, most of JCO's 120 employees will lose their jobs, said company spokesman Katsunori Suzuki. "There will be work left for us to deal with, such as safety control and compensation payments, but eventually the employees will be losing their jobs," Suzuki said.
An official at Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel said it was producing about 200 tons of the fuel out of its 400-ton capacity a year, while JCO had been producing 350 tons out of a 700-ton capacity. "Since the accident, we have shouldered part of JCO's share," said a Mitsubishi official, who declined to be named. "We have not any specific plans, but we will be raising output." The science and technology agency official said power companies had stocks and could also import fuel from overseas "so there will be no immediate supply shortfall."
Tadayuki Kamimura, at the agency's nuclear fuel section, added that production "has been suspended ever since the accident, and the gap has been filled by Mitsubishi and suppliers in the United States and France." Japan's nuclear power industry, which relies on 51 commercial plants to supply one-third of its electricity, requires about 1,000 tons of the fuel a year
Newswires |
