BNFL discovers more fuel with falsified data: KEPCO

Source: Kyodo News Service/Associated Press Publication date: Feb 18, 2000

OSAKA, Feb. 18 (Kyodo) -- British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL), mired in a scandal involving falsification of data on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel it produced for Japan, has discovered more fuel rods with falsified data, Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) said Friday.

John Taylor, chief executive of BNFL, said in a meeting with KEPCO officials in Osaka that a further eight MOX fuel rods, in addition to the 23 already reported, had their quality assurance data falsified, the Japanese company said.

Two of the eight rods are for the No. 4 nuclear power reactor at the Takahama plant run by KEPCO in Fukui Prefecture, while the remaining six are among those awaiting shipment from Britain to Japan for Takahama's No. 3 reactor.

The two for the No. 4 reactor arrived at the Takahama plant in October. KEPCO said earlier that it could not find any abnormalities in the data, but explained Friday that that was because the data had been falsified using a new method.

In addition, BNFL rejected two MOX fuel rods for the No. 3 reactor during the manufacturing process last September as they were found to contain foreign substances such as screws and pieces of concrete, KEPCO officials quoted Taylor as saying.

BNFL reportedly suspects its employees may have inserted the substances on purpose, because it is highly unlikely that such substances would get mixed into MOX fuel in the production process, KEPCO said.

KEPCO said that Takashi Iwasaki, an executive vice president of the company, told Taylor that KEPCO's MOX fuel projects have taken a big step backward as a result of the data falsification.

Taylor apologized for the incident and indicated that BNFL is putting together a company-wide system to prevent the reoccurrence of such scandals, KEPCO said.

Following the revelation of the falsification scandal last September, some data on MOX fuel already in Japan for Takahama's No. 4 reactor were found in December also to have been falsified.

Taylor's visit coincided with the release in Britain of a report by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) saying the falsification of MOX fuel data at BNFL took place on a much wider scale and for longer than previously thought.

Publication date: Feb 18, 2000 ) 2000, NewsReal, Inc.

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