nuclear-news

Japan banking on non-viable reprocessing, because it has nowhere to put nuclear wastes

the government has delegated the task of dealing with waste to the private sector, so there is no central decision-maker 

“Why does the government stick to the very costly recycle policy? That is because if they give it up, they should explain where a final repository will be located,” 

Beyond Fukushima Japan faces deeper nuclear concerns, Vancouver Sun, By RISA MAEDA, Reuters February 24, 2012 TOKYO“…..A DECENT BURIAL With Japan’s recycling efforts running so far behind the required pace
to deal with the waste problem, Japan needs to find another resting place for its waste, away from nuclear power plants, which are typically located on the coast.

But unlike France and the United States, the world’s biggest atomic power generators, Japan does not have much in the way of geologically stable and empty landscapes in which to bury nuclear waste for centuries. Given its population density is 10 times higher than the United States and almost three times higher than France, Japan faces a “not in my backyard” problem like no other big nuclear-power nation.

It certainly has nothing like the deserts of Nevada, where Washington
had been developing a burial chamber deep inside a mountain before
shelving the project in 2010, partly due to local opposition. The
United States also stores its waste at power stations nationwide and
it too is being urged to quickly find a new burial site in light of
the Fukushima crisis.

Japan has yet another peculiar challenge: the government has delegated
the task of dealing with waste to the private sector, so there is no
central decision-maker, only regulators — unlike France and the
United States whose nuclear-weapons capability mean that state bodies
call the shots.

Even large dry-cask storage facilities, used in Europe and the United
States as a more secure form of interim storage than cooling pools,
are still non-existent in Japan.
A joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power, operator of the crippled
Fukushima plant, and Japan Atomic plans to build Japan’s first large
dry-cask storage facility in Mutsu, north of Rokkasho, where 3,000
tonnes of spent fuel would be encased in metal and stored on an
interim basis.

But that project would be dedicated only to Tokyo Electric and Japan
Atomic rather than all nuclear utilities, and it is also delayed, with
commercial operation set to begin in October next year, 15 months
behind schedule.

MASSIVE POWER BILL

Japan’s recycling policy is not only behind schedule, it is very
expensive: according to official estimates, it would cost a staggering
19 trillion yen ($245 billion) to re-use waste reprocessed at Rokkasho
over 40 years. Recycling all waste fuel would cost 2 yen per kilowatt
hour in 2030, twice as much as just burying it at a final repository.

“Why does the government stick to the very costly recycle policy? That
is because if they give it up, they should explain where a final
repository will be located,” said BNP’s Kono.

Even Aomori prefecture, where the Rokkasho plant is located, has said
it does not want to be the site of a final repository, with its
governor making clear that his remote, relatively poor prefecture was
already doing enough for Japan’s energy security.

“Our position is clear that Aomori would not host a final repository,”
Governor Shingo Mimura told reporters this month.

The search for a final resting place has been entrusted to a private
company, the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation of Japan (NUMO),
rather than the government itself — in keeping with Japan’s
private-sector approach to an industry that serves a civilian purpose
only.

But NUMO, which is backed by funds provided by utilities, has not yet
found a town willing to host it.

At Rokkasho, a glance at the plant’s own temporary storage pool for
spent fuel shows the gravity of the problem that looms larger for the
future of Japan’s nuclear industry than just hoping some reactors will
be back on line this summer.

The pool at Rokkasho is already 95 percent full of spent rods, which
have been sent there over the years from across the country in
anticipation of its long-awaited start-up.

Harukuni Tanaka, a JNFL director, said recently that it would take
another two to three years before the pool reached its capacity, based
on the plans of its customers, all of which are Japan’s 10 nuclear
power generators.

As the wind turbines spin nearby, offering a glimpse of a clean-energy
future that is still decades away, Japan’s nuclear industry is praying
for Rokkasho to buy it more time.   http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Beyond+Fukushima+Japan+faces+deeper+nuclear+concerns/6205282/story.html#ixzz1nQs5BxmY

February 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, reprocessing, wastes