Japan is calling it quits on the Monju prototype reactor, an experimental, costly, and failed system that officials had hoped would serve a critical role in national nuclear fuel recycling.
According to BBC News, the reactor was operational for only 250 days of its 22-year lifespan and cost Japan $9 billion. The Japanese government formally announced this week that it would defuel and dismantle the system. According to the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), defueling is expected to be completed in 2022, and dismantlement by 2047. The IPFM said a recent estimate suggests that restarting the reactor would take about eight years and cost ¥540 billion (about $4.82 billion), while dismantlement is expected to cost ¥375 billion ($3.2 billion).
As detailed by the IPFM, Monju reached criticality in 1994 and plugged into the grid in August 1995, only to shut down four months later when a molten sodium coolant leak caused a fire. The reactor wasn’t restarted for 15 years, in May 2010, but it shut down again after three months, this time due to a refueling accident. The Japan Nuclear Regulatory Authority in November 2015 declared the reactor’s operator, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, unfit to maintain operation of the system, following a failed safety inspection.
