Fukushima News - 11/01/2013

Fukushima Daiichi operator should not handle shutdown, says governing party

Japan's Liberal Democratic party proposes decommissioning unit independent of the nuclear power plant's operator, Tepco

the Guardian,

31 October, 2013

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant should be stripped of responsibility for decommissioning the wrecked facility, according to Japan's governing party, as the utility prepares for the most dangerous phase yet in the cleanup operation.

Among the options outlined in a proposal by the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) is a new decommissioning unit that is financially independent of Tepco. Another option is the formation of a government-affiliated administrative agency.

The proposal comes amid mounting criticism of Tepco's handling of problems at the plant, including leaks of radioactive water.

The firm is expected to begin removing 1,300 spent fuel assemblies from the remains of the reactor No 4 building towards the middle of next month. Some nuclear experts have warned that even a slight mishap involving the fuel rods could result in huge releases of radiation into the air and sea.

Shunichi Tanaka, the head of Japan's nuclear regulation authority, warned that the work would be more hazardous than usual because of debris that fell into the reactors storage pool during hydrogen explosions in March 2011.

"It's a totally different operation than removing normal fuel rods from a spent fuel pool," Tanaka said. "They need to be handled extremely carefully and closely monitored. You should never rush or force them out, or they may break. I'm much more worried about this than I am about contaminated water."

Toyoshi Fuketa, a senior member of the authority, said the fuel rod removal would mark a "major step towards decommissioning".

This week Tepco released a video explaining its plan to remove the rods, which were being stored in a pool 100ft above ground when the plant was struck by the 11 March 2011 tsunami.

Three other reactors suffered core meltdowns in the disaster, forcing the evacuation of 160,000 people in the area.

A remote-controlled crane installed inside the reinforced reactor building will perform the delicate task of removing the spent fuel, Tepco said in its video.

One by one, the fuel assemblies will be lifted out of storage and placed in dry casks before being moved to a common cooling pool in an adjacent building. "This transfer from one form of underwater storage to another will not lead to any radiation exposure to workers or anyone else," the company said.

Tepco hopes to complete the job by the end of next year before clearing out other fuel pools. Work to remove molten fuel from deep inside three other damaged reactors is not expected to start until 2020.

The LDP panel, which will present its report to the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, next week, reportedly favours the creation of a special unit to focus on decommissioning while the rest of the company is left to generate electricity for 29m homes and businesses in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

Tepco is hoping to receive the go-ahead to restart its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the biggest atomic facility in the world, in Niigata prefecture early next year. The firm believes that if all seven of the plant's reactors were restarted it could save $1bn (£623m) a month on fuel costs.

Niigata's governor, Hirohiko Izumida, has not ruled out a restart, but says the firm must first address its culture of "institutionalised lying", citing the firm's belated admission in July that the plant was leaking radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.

"If they don't do what needs to be done, if they keep skimping on costs and manipulating information, they can never be trusted,"Izumida said.

The company faces a multibillion-dollar bill for compensating evacuees. Decommissioning the plant is expected to take around 30 years and cost at least ¥100bn (£634m). The utility, which has lost $27bn since March 2011, was effectively nationalised last year after the government injected ¥1tn of public funds.

On Thursday, Japan's deputy prime minister and minister of finance, Taro Aso, hinted that the government would step in to fund the decontamination of towns and villages in the evacuation zone around the plant.

Tepco is currently required to repay the government for decontamination costs but has reportedly asked for exemption from the payments, which one study has put at as much as ¥5tn.

Aso said: "I wonder if we can put all the blame on Tepco, given that nuclear policy was framed by the national government."

TEPCO, US to cooperate in Japan nuke plant cleanup

Japanese utility, US Department of Energy to cooperate in Fukushima nuclear plant cleanup

Yahoo,

1 November, 2013

TOKYO (AP) -- The utility operating Japan's crippled nuclear power plant said Friday that it will work with the U.S. Department of Energy in decommissioning the site and in dealing with radioactive water problems.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Naomi Hirose said he agreed to accept U.S. help in discussions with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz as they visited the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on Friday to inspect preparations to remove fuel rods from a storage pool.

The plant has recently had a series of mishaps, including leaks of radioactive water from storage tanks. The incidents, many of them caused by human error, have added to concerns about TEPCO's ability to safely close down the plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns after being hit by a March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Following criticism of its perceived reluctance to accept foreign help, Japan has recently begun to show more willingness to do so.

Operators of the plant are currently making final preparations to remove fuel rods from an uncovered cooling pool at Unit 4 — one of four reactor buildings damaged in the crisis, and the one considered at highest risk. Removing the fuel rods from the cooling pool is the first major step in a decommissioning process at the plant that is expected to take decades.

The fuel removal at Unit 4 was given preliminary approval by Japanese regulators on Wednesday and is to start by mid-November following a final go-ahead.

"As Japan continues to chart its sovereign path forward on the cleanup at the Fukushima site and works to determine the future of their energy economy, the United States stands ready to continue assisting our partners in this daunting yet indispensable task," Moniz said in a statement late Friday. He said a U.S.-Japan commission to strengthen cooperation in civil nuclear research and development, as well as Fukushima cleanup, emergency response, and regulatory issues, will meet in Washington next week.

Despite public concerns over potential risks of radiation from the plant, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has pushed for a restart of the country's nuclear reactors, which are currently all offline for safety checks. Moniz said he expects nuclear power will remain a crucial part of the energy mix as the world tries to mitigate global warming.

"We will work together to tackle many challenges toward decommissioning," Hirose said in an interview with Japanese public broadcaster NHK. "I have high hopes that we will be able to benefit from U.S. experience and expertise at Fukushima Dai-ichi."

The two sides hope to contribute to global nuclear power by sharing technology in stabilizing and decommissioning the plant, Hirose said.

"The success of the cleanup also has global significance. So we all have a direct interest in seeing that the next steps are taken well, efficiently and safely," Moniz said in a speech Thursday in Tokyo.

Moniz, escorted by Hirose, inspected the Unit 4 pool area, as well as storage tanks for contaminated water, radioactive water treatment units and other facilities at the plant.

The reactor building was damaged by hydrogen explosions, and remains a source of international concern about a catastrophic open-air meltdown in case of a pool collapse, despite TEPCO's repeated reassurance that it has reinforced the pool and that the building can withstand another major earthquake.

TEPCO also has appointed a former U.S. regulator who led the cleanup of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States as an adviser.