nuclear-news

Mayor again stands in way of plan for spent nuclear fuel, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, December 18, 2020,   Utilities have revived plans to expand the use of an intermediate storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, but immediately objections were voiced by the same mayor who quashed a similar proposal two years ago.The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) on Dec. 17 formally announced that it would push forward with the plan to allow all utilities that operate nuclear power plants to use the intermediate storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture.

Kazuhiro Ikebe, head of FEPC, met the same day with economy minister Hiroshi Kajiyama, who oversees the nuclear power industry, and presented the proposal. Kajiyama pledged his cooperation to realize the plan.

However, also on Dec. 17, Mutsu Mayor Soichiro Miyashita made clear that he would never allow all utilities to use the facility, which will be operated by Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co. (RFS) starting in fiscal 2021.

RFS was jointly established by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Japan Atomic Power Co. Under the original plan, spent nuclear fuel from only those two companies will be stored at the Mutsu facility in the northern prefecture.

But in 2018, Kansai Electric Power Co. indicated that it also wanted to store its spent nuclear fuel at the Mutsu facility.

Kansai Electric operates nuclear power plants in Fukui, a central Japan prefecture that faces the Sea of Japan. Fukui prefectural government officials asked the utility to find a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel outside of the prefecture.

When word reached Miyashita about the Kansai Electric plan, he immediately opposed, and the utility was forced to retract the proposal.

Under the latest FEPC proposal, other utilities besides TEPCO and Japan Atomic Power would be able to use the Mutsu facility as long as they paid storage fees. But the real, near-term beneficiary would still be Kansai Electric……. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14031110