February 29, 2012

Monthly Press Conference

Today, President Kawai held a monthly press conference in Aomori City and talked about "Status of work for recovering the discharge flow in System B of the glass melter" and "Current status of JNFL's activities on emergency safety measures".

"Status of work for restoring the discharge flow in System B of the glass melter"

  • JNFL began cooling the furnace on February 3, and completed clearing the discharge nozzle, using a foreign object removing device, on February 15.
  • Materials from the furnace, recovered from the discharge nozzle, included glass components as well as chrome, aluminum and other typical components of bricks which are in direct contact with glass materials inside the furnace.
  • At this stage, JNFL suspects that brick fragments flowed into the nozzle and compromised the flow. Analysis work will continue.
  • The furnace will be reheated after re-installing the combiner, which was removed to clear the nozzle.
  • JNFL will remove all the glass inside the furnace, and examine the status of discharge flows and the conditions inside the furnace after the removal of glass. A preliminary verification test will be started after an investigation is conducted on why the discharge flow was compromised, based on the results of analysis on collected samples.
  • JNFL will continue to work on the matter with safety as the top priority.

"Current status of JNFL's activities on emergency safety measures"

  • Mid-winter trainings were conducted six times in February and five of these were all-personnel trainings on the scenario of total loss of AC power, involving a total of 400 workers.
  • Although this was the first time to carry out a training in mid-winter, all personnel showed swift response, just as they did in the summer training last year.
  • The Reprocessing Plant has a reservoir and water tanks for firefighting as part of emergency preparedness. Should multiple tanks become unavailable, the plant would draw water from nearby swamps and marsh.
  • It was confirmed last summer that water can be drawn from these sources. An additional training was conducted on the 24th to confirm that these sources are available also in mid-winter.
  • JNFL plans to continue carrying out trainings for various scenarios repeatedly to establish solid preparedness for emergency.