The Agency for Nuclear and Industrial Safety issued a certificate on Friday to Tokyo Electric Power Co. stating that the company's plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel imports have passed safety inspection.
The agency issued the certificate for the 28 containers of MOX fuel imported from Britain for use in the No. 3 reactor of TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, located on the Sea of Japan coast.
Although TEPCO submitted to the central government a plan for periodic plant inspections, expected to begin Tuesday, it did not state whether it plans to use the MOX fuel in its thermal reactor or continue using uranium fuel.
The utility had planned to begin using MOX fuel from Tuesday, but the Niigata Prefectural Government has been reluctant to allow Japan's first nuclear plant to use the controversial fuel.