nuclear-news

Japan, which currently doesn’t have any final disposal sites for high level radioactive waste, has 17,000 metric tons of domestically spent nuclear fuel that dates back to the 1970s.

Most of the current waste is stored in a facility in Rokkasho, a small village in Aomori prefecture in northern Japan, where it is mixed with liquid glass to let it consolidate in big cylindrical bins.

The prefecture only allowed the facility to be established after the government promised the fuel would be moved elsewhere 30 to 50 years later.

Under the new system, which will take effect in April, the government will come up with a list of places that would be suitable for permanent storage. It will use scientific data that takes geological and seismological concerns under consideration, radioactive waste management director Masao Ito said at a separate news conference later in the day.

He said details such as when the list will be disclosed or how many candidates will be on the list are still undecided. Since the government would first need permission from any prospective location before storing the waste there, finding a municipality willing to house the controversial, dangerous materials is likely to be a significant problem.

“We don’t plan to take too long, as we learned our lesson from the fact that there has been no progress in about a decade,” Mr. Ito said.The nuclear waste problem has been exacerbated by the accident at Fukushima in March 2011.

Japan started in 2002 inviting municipalities to indicate whether they were interested in storing highly radioactive nuclear waste permanently and offered accompanying subsidies for applying.

The government was offering ¥1 billion ($9.7 million) to go through the first paper screening, which wouldn’t require a firm commitment to store the waste. Only the small town of Toyo in Kochi prefecture, western Japan, officially submitted its candidacy to the government in 2007. But the town quickly withdrew its application after the local population expressed fierce opposition to the idea.

Among major nuclear power using countries, only Finland and Sweden have decided where to permanently store nuclear waste.