Nov. 5--FUKUOKA -- Japan began operating a nuclear power reactor Thursday using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) as fuel for the first time in the country, about 10 years behind the initial plan for the so-called "pluthermal" electricity generation.

Nuclear fission began at the 1.18 million-kilowatt No. 3 reactor at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan, after a control rod was removed from the reactor at 11 a.m., company officials said.

The pressurized light-water reactor is expected to attain criticality late Thursday night, the officials said.

Kyushu Electric plans to begin generating electricity at the reactor Monday and raise its power output gradually under controlled operation later, they said.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is scheduled to conduct checks on the reactor Dec. 2 to examine its power output stability and core performance. If the reactor clears the checks, it will go into full-fledged operation.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told a regular morning news conference the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama regards atomic power as a necessary energy source, given environmental problems.

Japan "needs to establish a framework for public trust and secure safety" in the use of nuclear energy, the government's top spokesman said.

Hirano said the government will try to develop renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, in parallel.

In the prefectural capital of Saga, a group of some 20 citizens held a protest rally against the launch of the MOX fuel power generation.

Originally, Japan's electric power industry planned to begin pluthermal power generation in the late 1990s under the country's nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure.

In February 1997, Japan's Cabinet endorsed the power industry's plan to use MOX as fuel in reactors. Kansai Electric Power Co. gained government approval for its MOX plan at that time, and Tokyo Electric Power Co. gained approval in 1999.

But the plan hit a snag due to a series of problems, particularly involving cover-ups of reactor trouble at various nuclear power plants, as well as opposition from local governments and residents.

Kyushu Electric, a Fukuoka-based power firm supplying electricity to the Kyushu region, gained government approval in 2005 for pluthermal power generation at the Genkai plant.

The company began regular checks of the No. 3 reactor at the Genkai nuclear power plant in late August. It finished loading MOX fuel into the No. 3 reactor in mid-October.

The four-reactor plant in the town of Genkai has a combined output capacity of about 3 million kw.

MOX fuel is a mixture of uranium and plutonium reprocessed from spent uranium.

The electric power industry says MOX power generation could lead to the efficient use of uranium and plutonium.

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, made up of the country's 10 regional power utilities, has already announced a plan to use MOX fuel at 16-18 nuclear reactors across the country by fiscal 2015, which begins in April that year.

Shikoku Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power Co. plan to begin MOX power generation at the Ikata nuclear power plant in Shikoku's Ehime Prefecture and the Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, respectively, in 2010 or later.

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