nuclear-news

Japan’s intractable nuclear waste problem, and recycling is not the answer

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.

Beyond Fukushima Japan faces deeper nuclear concerns Vancouver Sun, By RISA MAEDA, Reuters February 24, 2012 TOKYO – On a hillside in northern Japan, wind turbines slice through the cold air, mocking efforts at a nearby industrial complex to shore up the future of the demoralised nuclear power industry.

The wind-power farm at Rokkasho has sprung up close to Japan’s first nuclear reprocessing plant, a Lego-like complex of windowless buildings and steel towers, which was supposed to have started up 15 years ago but is only now nearing completion.

Dogged by persistent technical problems, it is designed to recycle spent nuclear fuel and partly address a glaring weakness in Japan’s bid to restore confidence in the industry, shredded last year when a quake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi power station to the south, triggering radioactive leaks and mass evacuations.

But the Rokkasho project is too little, too late, according to critics who say Japan is running so short of nuclear-waste storage that the entire industry risks shutdown within the next two decades unless a solution is found.

“You don’t build a house without a toilet,” said Jitsuro Terashima, president of the Japan Research Institute think tank and member of an expert panel advising the national government on energy policy after the Fukushima disaster….
Long-term storage of highly radioactive waste is a problem common to
all nuclear-powered nations, including the United States, but experts
say Japan’s unstable geology and densely populated terrain mean that
its challenges are far bigger……

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 | Uncategorized