Industry minister Hiroshige Seko has denied a news report that 10 nuclear power plant operators halted funding for the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in fiscal 2016, saying that there is no change in Japan's nuclear fuel recycling policy and that the utilities are now paying reserve funds to a state-linked organization.
The report by Kyodo News and published on The Japan Times' website on Sept. 3, alleged that the 10 power companies stopped dispatching funds for the future reprocessing of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel that contains plutonium and uranium. Such a move would affect resource-scarce Japan's nuclear fuel recycling policy, Kyodo said.
But Seko told a Tuesday news conference that the power firms had merely changed their accounting rules and are now paying the reserve funds to the Nuclear Reprocessing Organization of Japan (NROJ), based on a fuel-funding law enacted in 2016.