Fukushima Cleanup Talks Put Tepco Survival Risk in Focus
Tokyo Electric Power Co. is still struggling to put the Fukushima nuclear disaster behind it, admitting this week that paying for decommissioning the plant in one go risks leaving it insolvent.
The cost to insure debt in Japan’s biggest utility climbed to a seven-month high of 89 basis points on Oct. 5 after President Naomi Hirose said after a meeting in Tokyo with a government commission that the company is asking for help in avoiding financial ruin. Tepco has already received state aid for compensation and decontamination.
The March 2011 nuclear accident and its fallout will ultimately cost more than 11 trillion yen ($106 billion), according to a study by academics including Kenichi Oshima, a professor of economics at Ritsumeikan University. Tepco has estimated that decommissioning alone will cost about 2 trillion yen. Investors should hold off buying bonds of other utilities until there is more clarity on how the government will close the Fukushima plant, according to BNP Paribas SA.
“Now is not the best time to be investing in electricity utility bonds, with discussions going on about nuclear plant decommissioning, and the potential for spreads to widen,” said Mana Nakazora, chief credit analyst at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. Even so, she added, “the government has little choice but to take measures to avoid a default by Tokyo Electric.”
While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has committed to provide up to 9 trillion yen for compensation to individuals and business hurt by the Fukushima disaster and for decontaminating areas affected, that figure doesn’t include decommissioning of the nuclear plant itself, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service last month.
Scrapping the Fukushima reactors may take 30 years to 40 years, and Tokyo Electric will only start removing debris from the plant from in 2021, a decade after the incident, according to the utility’s road map for dealing with the remnants of the disaster.
In speaking to reporters, Tepco President Hirose was probably making a public case for more government support, according to Yutaka Ban, the chief credit analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. in Tokyo. Ban said he saw little probability that support will be withheld.
“Things will likely settle down” after the government adopts the new measures, said Ban. “Without government support, the costs would be extremely high.”
For a Bloomberg Intelligence report on Asia-Pacific utilities, click here.
Tepco’s credit-default swaps have come down from as high as 1,762 basis points in October 2011, according to data provider CMA. The utility has said it plans to return to the bond market by the end of the fiscal year to March 2017. Jun Oshima, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric, said that plan is still in place. It stopped issuing notes after the Fukushima disaster.
The extra yield on Tepco’s 1.155 percent bonds due in 2020 was 64 basis points more than sovereign debt, the lowest since before the Fukushima disaster, according to Bloomberg-compiled prices. The spread on Osaka-based Kansai Electric Power Co.’s 0.976 percent notes due in 2020 was 39 basis points.
Tokyo Electric has a Ba3 rating from Moody’s and BB- score from S&P Global Ratings, both three levels below investment grade.
“Decommissioning is currently the biggest unknown, and clarity matters in terms of credit,” said Mariko Semetko, a Moody’s analyst in Tokyo. “The lack of clarity there has been holding back the credit quality.”
Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists: The Gender Politics of Food Contamination after Fukushima
by Aya Hirata Kimura (Author)
Following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 many concerned citizens—particularly mothers—were unconvinced by the Japanese government’s assurances that the country’s food supply was safe. They took matters into their own hands, collecting their own scientific data that revealed radiation-contaminated food. In Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists Aya Hirata Kimura shows how, instead of being praised for their concern about their communities’ health and safety, they faced stiff social sanctions, which dismissed their results by attributing them to the work of irrational and rumor-spreading women who lacked scientific knowledge. These citizen scientists were unsuccessful at gaining political traction, as they were constrained by neoliberal and traditional gender ideologies that dictated how private citizens—especially women—should act. By highlighting the challenges these citizen scientists faced, Kimura provides insights into the complicated relationship between science, foodways, gender, and politics in post-Fukushima Japan and beyond.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Riveting and smart, Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists tracks the efforts made by citizens in post-Fukushima Japan to ensure the safety of their food from radioactive contamination. In the face of state neglect and criticism from fellow Japanese, these initiatives display a ‘soft’ boldness (versus activist politics). Interweaving stories of citizen scientists and ‘radiation brain moms’ with sharp theoretics that deconstruct the entanglements of science, neoliberalism, and postfeminism at work, this book is at once powerful and timely.”
(Anne Allison, author of Precarious Japan)
“Based on careful research, extensive fieldwork, and a judicious use of political and feminist theory, this book’s relevance to political and social developments extends beyond Japan’s borders. It is a reminder of the ongoing effects of the Fukushima disaster in Japan at a time when these effects are being increasingly ignored by the global media. A timely and important book, Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists will appeal to scholars of contemporary Japanese society as well as science and technology studies scholars, especially those interested in the gender dimensions of science and technology.”
(Tessa Morris-Suzuki, author of Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era)
About the Author
Aya Hirata Kimura is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and the author of Hidden Hunger: Gender and Politics of Smarter Foods.
Radioactive water leaks from storage tank at Fukushima plant
The latest contaminated water leak at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant occurred at a flange-type storage tank, whose seams are connected by bolts.
Up to 32 liters of radioactive water leaked from a storage tank at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but the contaminated liquid has been contained, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Oct. 6.
The leaked water is currently within barriers surrounding the tank that are designed to block the flow of fluids, TEPCO, the plant’s operator, said.
The liquid contained water that had been treated to remove radioactive strontium and other substances, as well as highly contaminated water from the bottom of the tank that was stored shortly after the nuclear accident started in 2011.
A radioactivity level of 590,000 becquerels of beta ray-emitting materials was detected per liter of the leaked water.
The water seeped out of a tank with bolted seams on its sides, which are more prone to leaks than those with welded walls.
TEPCO continues to use the bolted containers despite the risk because production of welded tanks cannot keep pace with the buildup of contaminated water, mainly from groundwater entering the damaged reactor buildings, at the nuclear plant.
Japan Political Pulse: A helping hand following radiation misfortune
Recently former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, 74, was seen talking to 62-year-old Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Their encounter was recorded on a photo page of the Sept. 29 issue of the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun.
The scene was Aoyama Funeral Hall in Tokyo, where they had attended the Sept. 15 funeral of former Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Secretary-General Koichi Kato and were waiting for their cars to arrive. For about 90 seconds the “master and disciple” stood side by side. Below are the details of Koizimi’s comments and the prime minister’s reaction, which didn’t appear in Shukan Bunshun.
Koizumi: “Why don’t you totally eliminate nuclear power plants?”
Abe: (Faint smile, bow)
Koizumi: “Having zero nuclear power plants is cheaper. Why don’t you understand such a simple thing? It’s all lies, what the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is saying. The things advocates of nuclear power plants are saying — they’re all lies. Don’t be fooled.”
Abe: (Wry smile, bows again, and with head kept low heads to official vehicle)
Koizumi is currently pouring his efforts into a fund to support those who say they were affected by radiation during “Operation Tomodachi,” a U.S. Armed Forces operation to support Japan in the wake of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Over 400 soldiers from the USS Ronald Regan aircraft carrier and accompanying ships complained of ill-health after helping in rescue efforts following their urgent dispatch to the seas off Fukushima Prefecture in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami and ensuing meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Some of them are said to have died from causes including leukemia.
The aircraft carrier fleet worked intermittently in a radiation plume from the stricken power plant between March 13 and 17, 2011. After returning home from Japan, a stream of soldiers developed ailments including brain tumors and thyroid cancer. The nuclear plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and the Japanese and U.S. governments acknowledged that they had been exposed to low-level radiation, but do not accept a causal relationship between exposure and their illnesses.
Koizumi learned that some soldiers had left the military at a young age, had no insurance and couldn’t pay their medical fees. It was in May this year that the former prime minister traveled to the United States and directly inquired about their circumstances.
Former soldiers earlier filed a lawsuit against parties including TEPCO, and oral arguments over whether jurisdiction of the case should lie in Japan or the United States were heard in an appeals court in California on Sept. 1. At the time, a Japanese government adviser is said to have supported an agent for TEPCO, stating that radiation exposure is the responsibility of the U.S. military.
Koizumi, who read a note on the hearing (carried in the Sept. 9 issue of the magazine Shukan Kinyobi), responded immediately.
“This is embarrassing. They were relief efforts for Japan, right? The American judge is said to have been appalled,” he was quoted as saying.
On July 5, Koizumi appeared in a news conference with figures including former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, 78, and Tsuyoshi Yoshiwara, 61, an adviser at The Johnan Shinkin Bank, to announce the start of fundraising activities to help the U.S. soldiers. Koizumi himself approached the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) but was turned away on the grounds that TEPCO is a member of the federation.
Reinforcements have nevertheless appeared on the funding front. Japanese architect Tadao Ando, 75, posed the following question: “Mr. Koizumi, will you come to Osaka and give a lecture? I’ll assemble 1,000 people. With a fee of 10,000 yen per person, that’ll bring in 10 million yen.”
When Koizumi appeared at the lecture in August, 1,300 people turned up. The same style of lecture is due to be held in Tokyo on Nov. 16, organized by the head of a group of managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, the president of a solar power generation company provided 10 million yen.
Through these efforts, the total has climbed to 50 million yen. Koizumi apparently hopes to amass 100 million yen by next spring.
The connection between radiation exposure and the development of illness is delicate. There’s a possibility of developing cancer, but there are doubts about whether a person would suddenly die, experts say.
On Sept. 7, Koizumi spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo’s Yurakucho district. He was asked if it was responsible to talk about damage from radiation exposure without presenting scientific evidence.
Below is the gist of his reply:
“I’m no longer a member of the government. I’m a civilian. There are people who are actually suffering. It’s common sense for me to support them.”
Fundraising and service instead of criticism; denial of the perception of saying, “Radiation exposure is the responsibility of the U.S. military” to protect nuclear power policies … I support this form of common sense from our former prime minister. (By Takao Yamada, Special Senior Writer)
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161003/p2a/00m/0na/021000c
Storage tank leaks at Fukushima Daiichi plant
Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have found a leak of highly radioactive water from a waste water tank.
Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, says the water likely leaked from a seam of the tank.
The leaked water was spotted on Wednesday on the side of one of an array of steel tanks holding contaminated water that is continuously generated at the site.
TEPCO’s analysis found 590,000 becquerel per liter of beta-emitting radioactive materials in the water.
Tokyo Electric estimates that 32 liters of such highly radioactive water had trickled out, mixed with rainwater, and remained within a barrier around the tank.
Workers moved water in the tank to another one to lower the water level enough to halt the leak.
The leaking cylindrical tank is made by splicing steel plates with bolts. But they have had waste water leaks in the past from seams.
The operator has been replacing these leak-prone tanks with new seamless ones. But the increasing volume of waste water makes it difficult for the utility to completely do away with the old ones.
Fire destroys Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuee housing
Fueled by strong winds, fire engulfs temporary housing at the Yoshima industrial park in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on Oct. 6, 2016.
IWAKI, Fukushima — A fire on Oct. 6 destroyed temporary housing for residents of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, who evacuated here due to the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster, police said.
The fire broke out at around 4:25 p.m. and destroyed 19 homes in four single-story, prefabricated wooden buildings at the Yoshima industrial park in Iwaki. According to prefectural police, a 16-year-old boy was treated for smoke inhalation. The Okuma Municipal Government will supply the five households that lost their residences with housing elsewhere.
There were 72 households living in 86 of the 31-building complex’s 122 residences. Some 90 percent of Okuma residents’ original homes are within a nuclear disaster no-go zone around the Fukushima plant, and it is unknown when those living in the Yoshima industrial park might be able to return to the town.
Sho Tsukamoto, 29, an employee of a construction company who lost his residence and his possessions in the fire, said, “I even lost the picture of my dead father and other photos of my family that I brought from Okuma.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161007/p2a/00m/0na/006000c
Nuclear authority method may underestimate quake sizes: study
This May 2016 photo shows the stone wall of Kumamoto Castle that was damaged by the April earthquake.
A technique that estimates the scale of earthquakes announced by the Earthquake Research Committee in 2006 may be underestimating the size of earthquakes — a problem for the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which bases its earthquake resistance plans on the system.
Professor Kazuki Koketsu presented the results of his evaluation of the 2006 system at a research session of The Seismological Society of Japan on Oct. 5. Koketsu is a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute at The University of Tokyo and the head of the Subcommittee for Evaluation of Strong Ground Motion, part of the Earthquake Research Committee.
Koketsu compared the estimations of the 2006 technique and a 2009 method to the actual observed data from the magnitude 7.3 Kumamoto Earthquake in April.
While the 2009 technique predicted a magnitude of 7.0 to 7.2 for the active fault, the 2006 technique underestimated the possible magnitude as between 6.6 and 6.9. Koketsu concluded that the 2009 technique is more appropriate for estimating the scale of earthquakes.
However, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) still uses the estimates of the strongest possible tremor made by the 2006 system as the basis for examining earthquake resistance design plans for nuclear reactors.
In response to Koketsu’s presentation, a representative of the NRA stated at a press conference held on Oct. 5., “We will begin discussion over whether we should adopt the 2009 system after the Subcommittee for Evaluation of Strong Ground Motion has coordinated its views on the matter.”
The 2006 technique bases its estimates on both the estimated length and breadth of active faults. In 2009, the Earthquake Research Committee released a new system based mainly on the length of faults in order to calculate the expected magnitude of quakes on as many active faults as possible in a short amount of time. In Koketsu’s study, the 2006 system miscalculated the length and width of the faults involved in the Kumamoto earthquake, leading to the underestimation of the scale.
While both techniques appear side by side in the research committee’s manual, the committee’s national earthquake scale prediction map for quakes measuring at least lower-6 on the 7-point Japanese intensity scale estimated to occur within the next 30 years along active faults are all calculated using the 2009 system.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161006/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
Ban on food from Japan’s radiation-affected areas remains: Taiwan FDA
Taipei, Oct. 6 (CNA) The food and Drug Administration (FDA) reaffirmed Thursday that there is no timetable for any lifting of a ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures that were affected by radiation fallout from a nuclear power plant meltdown following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
“There is no timetable for any such opening,” FDA Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) told CNA.
She declined to comment on reports that Taiwan and Japan have reached an initial consensus on Taiwan’s opening to food imports from the five prefectures.
Taiwan banned food imports from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures in the wake of the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011.
FDA Deputy Director-General Lin King-fu (林金富) said that food safety remains the primary concern, adding that the FDA will take stock of the management measures of other countries and continue to assess the situation.
Japanese media reported in May that Taiwan was planning to reopen to food imports from the five prefectures, but the reports were denied by the FDA. Reports resurfaced Thursday again about a lifting of the ban, and that formal opening could come early next year.
However, Pan Chih-kuan (潘志寬), an FDA food section chief, said that no related instructions have been received and that the assessment on Japanese food is still underway.
He stressed the three premises for opening — results of border inspection, monitoring results in Japan and the public’s attitude toward opening.
He said that since 2011, border inspections on 92,000 Japanese food items have been carried out, with 215 items found to contain a tiny amount of cesium. One item was found to contain the radioactive material in the past year.
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201610060009.aspx#.V_b8QyR8f38.facebook
Fukushima FAQ: Are Fukushima Radionuclides Causing Super Storms in the Pacific and Atlantic?
Hurricane Matthew spins in the Caribbean. Storms are fueled by energy which ultimately comes from the sun.
Short answer is absolutely not.
This post is part of an ongoing series dedicated to science education and to relate scientific findings about the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on environmental and public health. I am frequently (more than you might think) asked if or told that the decay energy from radionuclides released from Fukushima Daiichi are fueling some of the massive cyclones in the Pacific in Atlantic Oceans. This is nonsense of course but highlights some of the logic used and how misinformation can fuel incorrect conclusions with respect to Fukushima and its environmental and public health impacts.
The thought process that brings one to link Fukushima contamination to hurricanes and typhoons goes something like this:
- Fukushima released radionuclides to the environment with much of the contamination ending up in the Pacific Ocean
- Radioisotopes generate heat when they decay
- Tropical cyclones feed off of ocean heat
- Fukushima is causing or causing more intense tropical cyclones
It is likely that increasing sea surface temperatures have the potential to influence the number and intensity of tropical cyclones. However, when we examine the reasoning linking Fukushima to cyclones and add a bit of numeracy we see how this reasoning is flawed.
One of the highest activity isotopes from Fukushima remaining in open ocean surface water is Cesium-137 (half-life = ~30 years, 137Cs). Much of this contamination remains in the North Pacific rather than in the tropics where typhoons form and far away from the tropical Atlantic where hurricanes form but lets ignore this fact for the purpose of our calculation. Maximum 137Cs activities measured by the Fukushima InFORM project in the northeast Pacific are ~ 10 Bq m-3 (cubic meter = 1000 L or ~1000 kg) of seawater.
By knowing this activity and the half-life of the isotope we can calculate the mass of 137Cs in one ton of seawater to be equal to be 0.0000000000031 grams or 3.1 x 10-12 g or 3.1 picograms. This highlights why detecting such low levels of contamination in the ocean is such an analytical challenge.
Now that we know how much 137Cs we have we can look up the decay energy of this isotope as well. This energy corresponds to the difference in mass between the parent and daughter isotope and for 137Cs is equal to 0.6 Watts per gram or 0.6 W g-1 (where a Watt is equal to 1 Joule per second).
So to a first order the power added to one ton (1000 kg) of seawater from Fukushima contamination is about:
(3.1 x 10-12 g) x (0.6 W g-1) = 0.000000000002 Watts or 2 picoW
This is a very small amount of power indeed. We can compare this to the Watts added to a square meter of the ocean surface. Erring on the low side in order to be conservative lets say that the Sun adds about 100 W per square meter (W m-2) at the ocean surface (but see this link from NASA for actual data).
The ratio of the power contributed by the Sun at the ocean surface to Fukushima decay energy is 50,000,000,000,000.
Suggesting that Fukushima energy is fueling cyclone activity is, scientifically speaking, silly. Friends don’t let friends do it.
Please see the NASA website for a useful summary of how tropical cyclones are formed.
Contaminated Water Tanks Without Fondation Bolts at Fukushima Daiichi
More than 1000 contaminated water tanks at Fukushima Daiichi, some do not have fondation bolts.
Even with a moderate earthquake of seismic intensity 4 there is a risk that those contaminated water tanks collapse.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission of Japan has published on their website the seismic statement submitted by TEPCO about those tanks without fondation bolts. Their quake-resistance standard is 0.3G lower.
http://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000107385.pdf
The photograph below clearly shows the tank without fondation bolts.
Seismic intensity 4 and typhoons could cause the collapse of those contaminated water tanks. In case of tanks collapsing, a large amount of contaminated water would of course flow into the Pacific Ocean.
Japan Grapples with Cost of Scrapping Fukushima Plant
Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, site of the 2011 meltdowns.
TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings promises to shoulder as much of the burden as possible in dealing with the aftermath of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, but additional outside assistance is deemed inevitable to cover the gargantuan cost of dismantling the facility.
An expert panel under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry began deliberations over the additional costs of the 2011 disaster on Wednesday. Attendees included Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and Akio Mimura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“We want to fully meet our responsibility for the Fukushima disaster without receiving government assistance,” said Tepco President Naomi Hirose, who attended as an observer.
Tepco has allocated 2 trillion yen ($19.3 billion) so far in preparation for the decades-long process to decommission its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. But it is expected to need trillions more once it starts to remove melted nuclear nuclear fuel from the site.
The bulk of the cost will not hit until the 2020s, so the government has made little progress in creating a framework to provide assistance, unlike efforts in compensating victims and decontaminating the surrounding area.
Hirose explained that once Tepco can give a realistic estimate, it will be required to recognize the entire cost at once and could turn insolvent. “We’d like the government to come up with a framework to eliminate such risks,” he said.
The panel will project decommissioning costs in its future meetings, and will make recommendations to Tepco regarding necessary reforms and restructuring by the end of the year. The utility will aim to create a new management plan in January based on the panel’s proposals. The economy ministry will iron out details on how to assist Tepco based on the expense estimate, such as by creating a reserve fund where Tepco can put aside the necessary money.
The discussion will focus on how much of the cost Tepco can assume through internal reforms. In addition to dismantling the plant, total compensation to victims is already expected to top 6.4 trillion yen, while decontamination could cost about 4 trillion yen — both above projections from January 2014. It will take Tepco and other major utilities decades to pay that off under the current framework. An update is in order.
“I am not in favor of any rescue plan that involves the government shouldering what Tepco should be paying,” said Hitotsubashi University professor Kunio Ito, who heads the expert panel. But he said something like that could happen “as a last resort.” A ministry official also suggested there may be a debate on raising electricity prices to help fund the decommissioning.
If the plan is to hike rates on customers not served by Tepco, the utility needs to put forth a strategy for reform that can satisfy the entire Japanese public. The government’s program will depend on how far Tepco is willing to go.
Tepco Threatens To Declare Bankruptcy; Dismantling Unit 1
Calls grow to curb further govt. support to TEPCO
Members of a panel looking at how to cover costs from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident say government support to the operator should be limited.
Economic leaders and academic experts attended the first meeting on Wednesday of a committee set up by the industry ministry to discuss decommissioning and compensation costs.
Officials said the government has earmarked about 87 billion dollars for compensation and decontamination work, and that operator Tokyo Electric Power Company has set aside about 19 billion dollars to scrap the crippled reactors.
But they said these funds could fall well short of the amount that will be needed.
Many participants said the utility must bear the increased financial burden through business restructuring and management reforms to curb additional government support.
TEPCO President Naomi Hirose, who took part in the meeting as an observer, warned that his company could become insolvent if it is forced to post the ballooning decommissioning costs as a debt.
He argued that a special accounting rule should be created to avoid a possible insolvency.
Before the next meeting is held, the government plans to show how much the cost of decommissioning the reactors is projected to grow.
Hirose told reporters after the meeting that his company should be the first to foot the bill, and that the firm will consider what should be done to absorb the cost.
Tepco Falls After President Highlights Fukushima Cost Risk
Japan utility declines 3.3% to settle at lowest in two weeks
Company seeks government help to eliminate insolvency risk
Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. closed at the lowest in more than two weeks after its president said it may face insolvency if it recognized at one time the cost of decommissioning the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant and that it’s asked the government to help eliminate the risk.
Tepco, as the company is better known, fell as much as 7.9 percent during intraday trading and closed 3.3 percent lower at 414 yen a share in Tokyo, the lowest since Sept. 16. The benchmark Topix index rose 0.6 percent.
“As it becomes possible to estimate the Fukushima decommissioning cost, we will have the problem of recognizing the liability at once. That means there is a possibility Tepco becomes insolvent,” President Naomi Hirose told reporters in Tokyo Wednesday after meeting with a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry commission charged with reforming the company. “We are requesting institutional measures to remove such risk.”
As of June, nearly 1 trillion yen ($9.7 billion) has been allocated to decommissioning and water treatment at Fukushima, Tepco spokesman Tatsuhiro Yamagishi said last month.
The March 2011 nuclear accident and its fallout will ultimately cost more than 11 trillion yen, according to a study by Japanese college professors including Kenichi Oshima, a professor of economics at Ritsumeikan University.
Tepco calls for government help to curb impact of rising Fukushima costs
A worker puts up new logo of TEPCO Holdings and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Group on the wall ahead of the transition to a holding company system through a company split at the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, March 31, 2016.
The operator of the nuclear power plant destroyed in the Fukushima disaster five years ago has asked Japan’s government for help in avoiding the risk of the utility going bankrupt should there be a sharp rise in the full estimated clean-up costs.
Tokyo Electric Power Co Holdings Inc didn’t specify what kind of help it was seeking, but people familiar with the matter said Japan’s biggest utility is looking for new rules to avoid having to book a huge loss in its accounts if it is estimated that there will be big cost overruns for decommissioning the power station.
“We don’t want to receive national rescue measures but want to bear the Fukushima responsibility ourselves,” Tepco president Naomi Hirose told a government panel, according the panel chief, Kunio Ito, a professor at Hitotsubashi University.
“For that reason, we would like to undertake steps for a further overhaul than we have had so far,” Hirose was quoted as saying.
In March 2011, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-metre high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, causing the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl 30 years ago. Meltdowns in three reactors released radiation over a wide area, contaminating water, food and air, and forcing more than 160,000 people to evacuate.
Dismantling the reactors is expected to take about 40 years, but even five and a half years on, Tepco still struggles to contain radioactive water from the plant and has said it can’t predict the eventual total costs of the clean-up and decommissioning.
After the panel meeting on Tepco reform and the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Hirose told reporters that it was difficult to accurately predict the costs of even a gradual decommissioning of the crippled reactors, said a spokeswoman for the utility, which generates about a third of the country’s electricity.
“If the issue of recognising all the estimated losses at once were to emerge, our company would fail, so we would like some structural assistance from the government to be able to avoid that risk,” Hirose said.
Tepco wants the government to consider introducing rules to avoid having to book a single huge exceptional loss as soon as cost estimates for decommissioning become clearer, said a person familiar with the situation.
Cost estimates could shoot up when the company and the government, which owns 50.1 percent of Tepco, decide on how to extract fuel debris at the plant in 2018 or 2019, said a person with direct knowledge of discussions on restructuring Tepco.
A government official familiar with the deliberations said, “In the event that Tepco can’t shoulder the burden, it will mean changing the fiscal-support system.” As it’s hard to imagine the government letting the company go bust, “in the end it will have to be a matter of either shouldering the burden with public funds or responding by raising electricity prices.”
The Mainichi newspaper said on Wednesday that Japan’s utilities lobby expects clean-up and compensation costs from the Fukushima disaster to overshoot previous estimates by 8.1 trillion yen (£62 billion).
The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan has informally asked the government to shoulder the extra cost, the newspaper said.
However, a federation spokesman said the group has not asked the government to shoulder any extra costs and the Mainichi estimates were not correct.
The new government panel also agreed that management reform at Tepco was necessary at its first meeting earlier in the day, panel chief Ito said.
Shares in Tepco ended down 3.3 percent after falling as much as 7.9 percent on Hirose’s remarks, which were initially interpreted as a plea for additional financial aid.
“The stock market seems to have reacted to the headline that it could become insolvent,” said a credit analyst at a Japanese brokerage. “But in reality, the president has just said what’s been known, that they need an accounting system that allows them to write off the cost of decommissioning gradually because posting the cost all at once could make it insolvent.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-tepco-outlook-idUKKCN1250JT
Japan’s nuclear regulator caves to industry interests yet again–Gives nearly 40 year old reactor a green light before the aging safety review even completed
5 October 2016, Tokyo – Today, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has again exposed itself as industry-captured by giving the Mihama 3 reactor owned by Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) a green light under post-Fukushima guidelines — clearing the way for restart — even before the regulator has completed its ageing-related safety review. The safety risks of age-related degradation can be enormous.
“The Mihama 3 reactor is like a vintage 1976 car that’s been driven at top speed for nearly 4 decades — and then sat idle for more than 5 years. Major safety components wear out, designs become outdated, and extended disuse creates yet another set of safety problems. Worse, it’s already been in a major accident 12 years ago due to a high-pressure pipe rupture that killed 5 workers. Most people wouldn’t just load up the kids in a car like that and speed off on a road trip. Yet, KEPCO and the NRA are trying to do just that, and they haven’t finished looking under the hood to see if the engine is alright. Unlike old cars, if an old reactor has a major accident, the victims can number in the hundreds of thousands and the crash site can extend for hundreds of kilometers. It’s nothing short of reckless, and puts the lives and livelihoods of families throughout the region at unnecessary risk,” said Kendra Ulrich, Senior Global Energy Campaigner for Greenpeace Japan.
Nuclear power plants are enormously complex, and safety-related components are only subject to normal age-related degradation. Constant irradiation of major components embrittles the metal, leading to an increased likelihood of potentially catastrophic failure during operation or emergency shutdown.
The Mihama 3 reactor is also located in the seismically-active Wakasa Bay region. The deep concerns over inadequate seismic assessments for the KEPCO’s Ohi reactors – also located in Wakasa Bay – pushed former NRA commissioner and seismologist, Kunihiko Shimazaki, to challenge the regulator directly. Although the NRA dismissed his concerns, the agency admitted that they could not reproduce the figures submitted by KEPCO in their assessment and so could not independently verify their accuracy. The same potentially faulty seismic assessment method was applied to Mihama 3.
The restart of aging reactors in Fukui has caused concern in surrounding prefectures. On 23 August, the Kyoto Governor Keiji Yamada said of the potential restart of the Takahama 1&2 reactors, “ . . .we should be extremely wary when it comes to aging nuclear reactors.”(1)
The restart of Mihama 3 is currently being challenged in court as a part of an umbrella lawsuit against all Fukui reactors. Greenpeace staff are plaintiffs in a case against KEPCO’s aging Takahama 1 & 2 reactors, also in Wakasa Bay.
Notes:
- Kyoto governor doesn’t accept Takahama 1, 2 reactor restart（京都府知事、容認せぬ姿勢 高浜原発１・２号機) Kyoto Newspaper on 23 August 2016 (accessed on 4 October 2016)
- Tomorrow, 6 October 2016, the Sendai 1 reactor in Kagoshima will be taken offline for scheduled maintenance. The newly-elected Kagoshima governor has repeatedly demanded the Sendai reactors be shut down for further safety checks. Due to his ongoing opposition to the operation of the reactors, it is unlikely that Sendai 1 will restart again before the end of 2016.
http://www.greenpeace.org/japan/ja/news/press/2016/pr201610051/
NRA grants aging Mihama reactor 20-year extension
OSAKA – The Nuclear Regulation Authority gave a green light Wednesday to extending the life of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s 40-year-old Mihama No. 3 reactor in Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, by 20 years.
The ruling was certain to provoke questions in Kansai and elsewhere about whether the NRA is lax on safety concerns.
Safety work related to the extension still needs to be carried out and is expected to take years to complete. Kepco hopes to restart the reactor sometime after the summer of 2020.
Wednesday’s decision marks the second time the NRA has approved extending the life of a 40-year-old reactor to 60. It previously approved restarting Kepco’s Takahama No. 1 and 2 reactors, which are 42 and 41 years old, respectively.
Under new guidelines adopted after the Fukushima triple meltdown in 2011, operators must decide whether to decommission units or apply to the NRA for a one-time, two-decade-maximum extension once a plant becomes 40 years old.
Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa and neighboring Shiga and Kyoto prefectures have expressed safety concerns over reactors that are more than 40 years old and questioned the necessity of restarting old reactors.
Obtaining local political consent for a restart could thus prove tougher for Kepco than might be the case for a younger reactor. Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada has already expressed wariness over the decision to restart the Takahama No. 1 and 2 reactors.
Citizens’ groups in and around Mihama are also expected to seek temporary injunctions in local district courts to halt the restart, which could mean a further delay in plans to turn it back on.
Greenpeace Japan criticized Wednesday’s decision. In a statement, Senior Global Energy Campaigner Kendra Ulrich said Mihama No. 3 was like a vintage 1976 car that was driven for four decades but has sat idle for more than five years, and that restarting it now puts the lives of people in the Kansai region at risk.
“Major safety components wear out, designs become outdated, and extended disuse creates yet another set of safety problems,” Ulrich said. “Worse, there was a major accident 12 years ago due to a high-pressure pipe rupture that killed five workers.”
Currently, five reactors that are more than 40 years old and one that is 39 years old are to be scrapped over the coming decades, including Kepco’s Mihama No. 1 and 2 reactors.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- April 2026 (346)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 