Officials at an experimental Japanese nuclear fuel reprocessing plant are investigating the leakage of a small amount of radioactive material earlier this week, the operator said yesterday.
No radioactive material leaked into the atmosphere and no one was exposed to radiation, said Yukio Takahashi, spokesman for Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.
Plant officials are investigating why about seven liters of radioactive chemical leaked from a pipe joint onto the floor of a refining building at the plant in Rokkasho, 580km northeast of Tokyo, Takahashi said.
The leak was discovered by a worker late on Wednesday and stopped after the chemical process was shut down, he said.
In July last year, plant officials noticed that a reagent was oozing through a joint in a different section of the same pipe. In that case, carbon was found to have been mistakenly included in the manufacturing of the joint, causing part of it to corrode, Takahashi said.
On April 12, water used to rinse off solid spent fuel before it is reprocessed leaked inside a protective tray at the plant.
The Rokkasho reprocessing plant started test operations on March 31 after a delay caused by a leak of radioactive water in 2002 and strident public opposition. The plant eventually is to produce MOX fuel, a uranium-plutonium mixture.
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