Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara: "Decommission Monju? Not a Chance!"

as if he has any say in it. Or maybe he thinks he will shortly. He must be counting on the Liberal Democratic Party becoming the ruling party again, with one of his sons at the helm. (That son was the one who diagnosed people against nuclear power as suffering from hysteria, in July last year.)

As Jiji Tsushin reports, he spoke like the de facto leader of LDP anyway.

From Jiji Tsushin (9/6/2012):

福井でもんじゅ視察＝「廃炉はとんでもない」－石原都知事

Tokyo Governor Ishihara visits Monju in Fukui: "Decommissioning? Not a chance."

東京都の石原慎太郎知事は６日、日本原子力研究開発機構の高速増殖炉「もんじゅ」（福井県敦賀市）を視察した。石原知事は視察後、「もんじゅは世界に先駆けた画期的な技術。廃炉なんてとんでもない」と感想を語った。

Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara visited Monju fast-breeder reactor of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) (in Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture) on September 6. Governor Ishihara said after the visit, "Monju is the first-in-the-world, epoch-making technology. Not a chance of decommissioning."

　もんじゅは２０１０年に運転を再開したが、試運転の第１段階終了後、停止したままになっている。石原知事は高速増殖炉研究の必要性を主張している。

Monju restarted operation in 2010, but has stopped ever since the first step of the test run was completed. Governor Ishihara has been a strong proponent of the fast-breeder reactor research.　

一方、政府が尖閣諸島（沖縄県石垣市）の購入で地権者と合意したことについて、石原知事は「所有者が決めて売ればいい。どうせ（今の）内閣はもたず、次の選挙で変わるんだから。自民党には買う意思はある。総裁選の争点にしてもらいたい」と話した。

In the meantime, when asked about the national government having come to an agreement with the owner of the Senkaku Islands over the purchase of the island, Governor Ishihara said, "It's up to the owner to decide and sell [if he wants to]. The current administration won't last long anyway, and will be replaced in the next election. LDP has the will to purchase the islands. I want the issue [of the Senkaku Islands] as a focal point in the LDP leadership election."

Never mind that Monju is not the first fast-breeder reactor; it may be epoch-making, but not in the way Ishihara seem to think. Where else has an operator of a fast-breeder reactor that uses liquid sodium as coolant dropped a fuel transfer machine in the reactor? Only in Japan. Or maybe he meant the make-shift technology that JAEA had to devise (or I should say Toshiba and Hitachi had to devise) to fish out the fuel transfer machine without exposing the coolant to the atmosphere.

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