Limit of Wisdom

It will be the crucial blow to the nuclear fuel cycle project in Japan. The Nuclear Regulation Authority reportedly decided to order that the operation of the fast breeder reactor, Monju, in Tsuruga City, Fukui, should be indefinitely suspended. Since Monju has been recognized as the fundamental facility of nuclear fuel cycle, its unavailability means the end of the project. This poor country needs to review its greedy ambition over nuclear policy.

The construction of Monju, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor, started in 1986. In 1995, an accident of sodium leakage caused suspension of operation. At the time, lack of accountability for publishing information was broadly criticized. In 2010, right after resuming its operation, it stopped with another accident by dropping of devices for exchanging nuclear fuel into the reactor. The government of Japan already injected about one trillion yens to the program.

The direct reason of the authority’s decision was failing in required maintenance. At an uninformed examination last September, the authority found about ten thousand of machines that were not inspected. They included crucial machines for safety, such as sodium leakage detector, neutron detector and diesel generator for emergency. According to Asahi Shimbun, workers in Monju said they did not report about the lack of inspection, because they thought the machines had been had no problem. The administrator did not know about the sabotage. In short, they have not been inappropriate as the administrators of nuclear facility.

The failure of Monju will damage already highly skeptical nuclear fuel cycle project in Japan. The cycle requires the reprocessing plant of used nuclear fuel, the fuel making facility where uranium or plutonium produced by the plant is processed to MOX fuel, and the final disposal facility of high-level radioactive waste. All those are not completed so far.

The motivation of the cycle project is building a system of eternal use of energy, which is nothing but a dream. The significance of Monju was thought as producing more quantity of fuel than used fuel. From the viewpoint of ordinary people, the theory is irrelevant to basics of science. The scientists were too greedy to obtain convenient energy.

Monju was named after Manjusri, a bodhisattva of wisdom. The wisdom we got from the project of Monju was human wisdom was limited.