nuclear-news

Spent nuclear fuel shipped to Japan’s 1st interim storage facility in Aomori

Sep. 25 TOKYO, https://japantoday.com/category/national/spent-nuclear-fuel-shipped-to-japan’s-1st-interim-storage-facility

The operator of a nuclear power plant in central Japan on Tuesday shipped spent fuel to the country’s first interim storage facility.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc sent 69 spent fuel assemblies from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture by ship. The fuel will be delivered to the interim storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture, on Thursday at the earliest.

With capacity at spent fuel pools at the plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors approaching the limit, TEPCO plans to transfer two containers that can hold 138 fuel assemblies and five containers with 345 assemblies from the plant to the interim storage facility in fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, respectively.

The 69 assemblies, which had been kept at the No. 4 unit, were shipped out in a metal container.

The interim storage facility, set up with joint investment from TEPCO and Japan Atomic Power Co, can store up to 5,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel for up to 50 years.

But there are concerns that the storage period will be exceeded as a nuclear fuel recycling plant due to be built in Rokkasho, also in Aomori, has yet to be completed.

The storage facility is expected to begin operations in late October following inspections by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.

There were 13,752 spent fuel assemblies kept at the Nos. 1-7 reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa before the shipment, accounting for over 80 percent of the spent fuel pools’ capacity. At No. 6 and No. 7 units, the spent fuel pools were at over 90 percent capacity.

September 27, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, wastes