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Japan’s Kyushu Electric to scrap aging nuclear reactor at Genkai

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc said on Wednesday it will decommission an aging reactor at its Genkai nuclear plant as the country’s power industry struggles to meet new nuclear safety standards set after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. 13 Feb 19, 

This will bring the number of reactors being scrapped to 17 since the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant nearly eight years ago.

The move comes as Japan’s return to nuclear power is slowly gathering pace, although the industry still faces public opposition, court challenges and unfavorable economics.

Kyushu Electric will scrap the No.2 reactor at the Genkai plant, about 930 km (580 miles) west of Tokyo. ……

Many of Japan’s reactors remain shut, with only nine operating, while they undergo relicensing to meet new standards set after the Fukushima crisis highlighted shortcomings in regulation.

Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-kyushu-elec-pwr/japans-kyushu-electric-to-scrap-aging-nuclear-reactor-at-genkai-idUSKCN1Q20Y3

February 14, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Japan’s Reconstruction Agency to air ad for Fukushima products on TV, online and at cinemas 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/08/national/japans-reconstruction-agency-air-ad-fukushima-products-tv-online-cinemas/#.XF3p09IzbGg
JIJI, FEB 8, 2019,    The Reconstruction Agency said Friday that it will run a television commercial advertising farm, fishery and forestry products made in Fukushima Prefecture for about a week from Saturday.

The 30-second spot is aimed at dispelling harmful rumors about the safety of products from the prefecture following the nuclear meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which was heavily damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The agency hopes to capitalize on rising interest in Fukushima Prefecture ahead of the eighth anniversary of the disaster on March 11.

The commercial, which will also highlight tourism spots in the prefecture, will be broadcast nationwide. It will also be run at movie theaters and online.

The agency has also created a section on its website to explain the current conditions in Fukushima Prefecture, helping visitors to learn about radiation and progress in reconstruction efforts.

February 11, 2019 Posted by | Japan, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Fire extinguisher system at nuclear plant freezes

 https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190210_10/  A fire extinguisher system has broken down at a nuclear power plant in northern Japan due to a record cold weather.

Hokkaido Electric Power Company says a worker discovered the problem at its Tomari nuclear plant in the country’s northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido early Saturday morning.

The problem affected equipment designed to maintain water pressure in the event of firefighting at the No.1 and No.2 reactors. All three of the plant’s reactors have been offline since 2012, following the Fukushima nuclear accident.

The utility says a part of the equipment was frozen due to the severe cold, causing the system to break down. It says there is no problem with the plant’s fire extinguisher system, and the problem did not affect firefighting functions.

Temperatures fell to minus 30 degrees Celsius or lower in many parts of the prefecture on Saturday. A nearby town recorded minus 12.7 degrees Celsius.
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The company also says the temperature was nearly minus five degrees in the room which houses the equipment, but a worker forgot to turn on the heating system.

The utility says it will work quickly to restore the faulty equipment and take measures to prevent a recurrence.

February 11, 2019 Posted by | climate change, Japan | Leave a comment

Japan’s propaganda about Fukushima’s ‘recovery’- getting people back to nuclear irradiated areas

The returning residents of Fukushima’s nuclear disaster

Near site of Fukushima nuclear disaster, a shattered town and scattered lives, WP, By Simon Denyer, February 3 2019 NAMIE, Japan —  Noboru Honda lost 12 members of his extended family when a tsunami struck the Fukushima prefecture in northern Japan nearly eight years ago. Last year, he was diagnosed with cancer and initially given a few months to live.

Today, he is facing a third sorrow: Watching what may be the last gasps of his hometown.

For six years, Namie was deemed unsafe after a multiple-reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

In March 2017, the government lifted its evacuation order for the center of Namie. But so far, hardly anyone has ventured back.

Its people are scattered and divided. Families are split. The sense of community is coming apart.

“It has been eight years; we were hoping things would be settled now,” the 66-year-old Honda said. “This is the worst time, the most painful period.”

For the people of Namie and other towns near the Fukushima plant, the pain is sharpened by the way the Japanese government is trying to move beyond the tragedy, to use the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a symbol of hope and recovery, a sign that life can return to normal after a disaster of this magnitude.

Its charm offensive is also tied up with efforts to restart the country’s nuclear-power industry, one of the world’s most extensive networks of atomic power generation.

Six Olympic softball games and a baseball game will be staged in Fukushima, the prefecture’s bustling and radiation-free capital city, and the Olympic torch relay will start from here.

But in Namie, much closer to the ill-fated nuclear plant, that celebration rings hollow, residents say.

This was a close-knit community of farmers, fishermen and potters — of orchards, rice paddies and cattle sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. It was a place where people celebrated and mourned as a community, and families lived together across generations.

That’s all gone. On the main street, a small new shopping arcade has opened. But a short walk away, a barber shop stands abandoned, its empty chairs gathering years of dust. A sign telling customers to make themselves at home is still displayed in a bar, but inside debris litters the floor. A karaoke parlor is boarded up. Wild boars, monkeys and palm civets still roam the streets, residents say.

Just 873 people, or under 5 percent, of an original population of 17,613 have returned. Many are scared — with some obvious justification — that their homes and surroundings are still unsafe. Most of the returnees are elderly. Only six children are enrolled at the gleaming new elementary school. This is not a place for young families.

Four-fifths of Namie’s geographical area is mountain and forest, impossible to decontaminate, still deemed unsafe to return. When it rains, the radioactive cesium in the mountains flows into rivers and underground water sources close to the town.

Greenpeace has been taking thousands of radiation readings for years in the towns around the Fukushima nuclear plant. It says radiation levels in parts of Namie where evacuation orders have been lifted will remain well above international maximum safety recommendations for many decades, raising the risks of leukemia and other cancers to “unjustifiable levels,” especially for children.

In the rural areas around the town, radiation levels are much higher and could remain unsafe for people to live beyond the end of this century, Greenpeace concluded in a 2018 report.

“The scale of the problem is clearly not something the government wants to communicate to the Japanese people, and that’s driving the whole issue of the return of evacuees,” said Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist with Greenpeace. “The idea that an industrial accident closes off an area of Japan, with its limited habitable land, for generations and longer — that would just remind the public why they are right to be opposed to nuclear power.”

Today, Namie’s former residents are scattered across all but one of Japan’s 47 prefectures. Many live in the nearby town of Nihonmatsu, in comfortable but isolating apartment blocks where communal space and interaction are limited. With young people moving away, the elderly, who already feel the loss of Namie most acutely, find themselves even more alone.

………. many residents say the central government is being heavy handed in its attempts to convince people to return, failing to support residents’ efforts to build new communities in places like Nihonmatsu, and then ending compensation payments within a year of evacuation orders being lifted. …….https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/near-site-of-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-a-shattered-town-and-scattere

February 4, 2019 Posted by | environment, Japan, politics, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Possible uranium sold on internet auction site, seized by police

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Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) headquarters
January 31, 2019
TOKYO — Radioactive materials that appear to be uranium were sold and bought on an internet auction website, people close to a police investigation into the case told the Mainichi Shimbun on Jan. 30.
The materials have been confiscated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) consumer and environment protection division and passed on for identification to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) officials. The JAEA judged that the materials are extremely likely to be depleted uranium and yellowcake uranium concentrate powder.
Police have identified the sellers and buyers of the materials, and will launch a full-fledged investigation into the case shortly as a possible violation of the Act on the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors. The law regulates unauthorized transfer of nuclear fuel material in the country. Violators face an imprisonment of up to 1 year or 1 million yen in fine.
According to individuals close to the investigation, the secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority first spotted materials dubbed as “uranium” were placed on an auction website, and reported the issue to the MPD. Investigators identified the seller and several buyers and confiscated the materials in question. The items were either powdered or solid and radioactive. They were placed in glass casings and weighed several grams in total. The seller agreed to voluntary questioning by police, saying that he had bought the goods on an overseas website.
The MPD requested that the JAEA identify the items in mid-December last year. The materials are likely to include depleted uranium that was produced during uranium enrichment and yellowcake, according to the people close to the investigation. The final results of the agency examination are expected to be released soon. Depleted uranium contains the fissile uranium 235 isotope at a concentration less than the natural concentration of 0.7 percent.
Experts worry that such radioactive materials could be abused in “dirty bombs” designed to disperse such materials as a form of terrorism. Professor Mitsuru Fukuda of the Nihon University College of Risk Management says the use of such explosives could result in sealing off the detonation area so that residents can evacuate and the area can be decontaminated.
“People’s concerns would rise and economic activities could stop. Even a tiny amount of material with low radioactivity could have a major impact on society,” he said.
(Japanese original by Ikuko Ando, City News Department, and Toshiyuki Suzuki and Riki Iwama, Science & Environment News Department)

February 3, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Radiation leaks at Japan’s Tokai plutonium lab; ‘no workers exposed’

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The Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, is seen in 1997.
Radiation leaks at Japan plutonium lab; no workers exposed
Jan 30, 2019,
A Japanese state-run nuclear fuel laboratory near Tokyo said Wednesday it detected a radiation leak in its plutonium handling facility, but no workers were exposed.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said a radiation alarm went off after nine workers changed plastic covers on two canisters containing MOX, a mixture of plutonium and uranium, and removed them from a sealed compartment.
JAEA said the workers, each wearing a mask, escaped radiation exposure after running into another room. No leak was detected outside the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories in Tokai Village, northeast of Tokyo. The facility ended nuclear fuel production in 2001 and is being decommissioned.
The cause of the leak is under investigation. The agency suggested possible damage to the plastic covers during the routine change.
JAEA has been reprimanded repeatedly by Japanese nuclear authorities for its poor safety record in recent years. A bag of plutonium broke during an inspection at another facility operated by the agency in 2017, contaminating five workers. A plutonium-burning fast breeder reactor, Monju, is being scrapped after suffering an accident in 1995.
Japan’s possession of large plutonium stockpiles from its struggling nuclear spent-fuel recycling program has raised international concerns. Critics say Japan should stop extracting plutonium, citing risks of it being used to develop nuclear weapons. JAEA possesses about half of the 10.5 tons of separated plutonium that Japan has at home, while an additional 37 tons have been reprocessed and are stored overseas.
To reduce the stockpile, Japan burns plutonium as MOX fuel in conventional reactors. Restarts of halted nuclear plants have proceeded slowly amid persistent anti-nuclear sentiment since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.
Alarm triggered at onetime nuclear fuel facility in Ibaraki after leak of radioactive substances
Jan 30, 2019
An alarm was triggered at a onetime nuclear fuel manufacturing facility Wednesday after radioactive substances leaked from materials that were being transferred at the facility operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, company officials said.
All nine of the workers who were in the room when the radiation leak occurred were cleared with no ill affects to their health, JAEA official Shinichi Nishikawa told a news conference.
JAEA said the workers, each wearing a mask, escaped radiation exposure after running into another room. No leak was detected outside the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories. The facility ended nuclear fuel production in 2001 and is being decommissioned.
The cause of the leak is under investigation. The agency suggested possible damage to the plastic covers during the routine change.
Officials told the news conference that they would begin assessing the site as soon as possible to determine how much radioactive material had been leaked and if it was still leaking.
The agency will file a report of its findings to the Nuclear Regulation Authority and come up with preventive measures.
The warning alarm that detects radioactive materials went off at around 2:30 p.m. as workers were removing radioactive materials — which were contained in a plastic bag — from sealed-up equipment that had been used for experiments.
The mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and plutonium was being kept in a sealed glove box container for future research.
The alarm is set up in an area of the facility once used for the production of MOX nuclear fuel made by mixing uranium with plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel.
In June 2017, a JAEA research facility in the town of Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, was the scene of another leak of radioactive substances, including powdered plutonium, when a plastic bag containing nuclear fuel remnants exploded. Five workers who were handling the materials were exposed to the substances.
JAEA possesses about half of the 10.5 tons of separated plutonium that Japan stores domestically, while an additional 37 tons have been reprocessed and are stored overseas. To reduce the stockpile, Japan burns plutonium as MOX fuel in conventional reactors.
Restarts of halted nuclear plants have proceeded slowly amid persistent anti-nuclear sentiment since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.

February 3, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment

IAEA urges Japan to slow the Fukushima wastes clean-up – delay release to Pacific till after Olympic Games

IAEA urges Japan to take ample time in Fukushima cleanup https://phys.org/news/2019-01-iaea-urges-japan-ample-fukushima.html   January 31, 2019 by Mari Yamaguchi The International Atomic Energy Agency urged Japan on Thursday to spend ample time in developing a decommissioning plan for the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant and to be honest with the public about remaining uncertainties.

In a report based on a visit by an IAEA team to the plant in November, the agency urged the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to secure adequate space and finish plans for managing highly radioactive melted fuel before starting to remove it from the three damaged reactors.

The cores of the three reactors melted after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Utility and government officials plan to start removing the melted fuel in 2021, but still know little about its condition and have not finalized waste management plans.

“The IAEA review team advises that before the commencement of the fuel debris retrieval activities, there should be a clear implementation plan defined to safely manage the retrieved material,” the report said. “TEPCO should ensure that appropriate containers and storage capacity are available before starting the fuel debris retrieval.”

The report also urged the government and TEPCO to carefully consider ways to express “the inherent uncertainties involved” in the project and develop “a credible plan” for the long term. It advised TEPCO to consider adopting contingency plans to “accommodate any schedule delays.”

Dale Klein, a former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman who heads a TEPCO reform committee, said in a recent interview that the decommissioning should not be rushed, even if the government and TEPCO have set a schedule and people want to see it move faster.

“It’s much better to do it right than do it fast,” he said, adding that it’s also good not to rush from a health and safety perspective. “Clearly, the longer you wait, the less the radiation is.”

He said he would be “astounded” if the current schedule ends up unchanged.

In order to make room in the plant compound to safely store the melted fuel and for other needed facilities, about 1 million tons of radioactive waste water currently stored in hundreds of tanks will have to be removed. The IAEA team, headed by Xerri Christoph, an expert on radioactive waste, urged the government and TEPCO to urgently decide how to dispose of it.

Nuclear experts, including officials at the IAEA and Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, have said a controlled release of the water into the Pacific Ocean is the only realistic option. A release, however, is unlikely until after the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in order to avoid concerns among visitors from overseas.

February 2, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, politics, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

A new type of robot to probe inside damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor

Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel, WP, By Mari Yamaguchi | AP, January 28 YOKOHAMA, Japan — Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.

The device is designed to slide down an extendable 11-meter (36-foot) long pipe and touch melted fuel inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel. The reactor was built by Toshiba and GE.

An earlier probe carrying a camera captured images of pieces of melted fuel in the reactor last year, and robotic probes in the two other reactors have detected traces of damaged fuel, but the exact location, contents and other details remain largely unknown.

Toshiba’s energy systems unit said experiments with the new probe planned in February are key to determining the proper equipment and technologies needed to remove the fuel debris, the most challenging part of the decommissioning process expected to take decades.

…….. The probe will mainly examine the fuel debris’ physical condition rather than its radioactive components or other details which require actual sampling and safe storage……. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/toshiba-unveils-robot-to-probe-melted-fukushima-nuclear-fuel/2019/01/28/4214f596-2314-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html?utm_term=.3bfe336cb31c

January 31, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

A bit of good news – Radioactive Cesium-137 diminishing in 2 Fukushima rivers, after close to 8 years

January 29, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | 1 Comment

Japan’s plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed

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Jan 20, 2019
With the decision by Hitachi Ltd. to “freeze” its plan to build two nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, all of the overseas nuclear power plant projects pursued by Japanese firms — with the backing of the government seeking to promote export of nuclear power technology as a key pillar of its efforts to boost infrastructure sales in overseas markets — have now effectively been derailed. Hitachi cited its judgments on the “economic rationality” of the U.K. project as the reason for halting the plan — an allusion to the declining profitability of the nuclear power business due chiefly to the surging cost of safety investments in the wake of the 2011 meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long taken the initiative to promote the overseas sale of Japanese nuclear power plants through top-level diplomacy. However, the nuclear power plant business cannot be a part of the nation’s growth strategy if its business feasibility is in doubt. The government and related industries need to face up to the situation surrounding the nuclear power business — which continues to face difficulties domestically as well — and reassess the way forward.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, has radically changed the global nuclear power market landscape. The cost of nuclear power, which had been promoted as a relatively inexpensive and “clean” source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide, spiked as additional safety investments inflated plant expenses.
The cost of Hitachi’s project to build the two reactors in Anglesey, Wales, which began in 2012, has ballooned from the initial estimate of ¥2 trillion to ¥3 trillion. Another project pursued by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to build four reactors in Turkey has also been hampered by the swelling cost — which reportedly shot up from an initially estimated ¥2.1 trillion to ¥5 trillion. Toshiba Corp. has pulled out from the overseas nuclear power business after the huge losses incurred by its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. in its nuclear power plant projects in the United States.
Even with a spike in plant construction costs, the nuclear power business would make economic sense if the expected earnings surpass the investments. But Hitachi reportedly decided to halt the U.K. project after it became clear that even with public support from the British government it could not possibly realize profits. The economic competitiveness of nuclear power has also been blunted by the sharp expansion of renewable energy such as solar and wind power after the Fukushima nuclear accident and its plummeting costs — although Japan lags far behind other major economies in this respect.
Behind the government’s drive to promote the sale of nuclear power plants overseas has been the domestic market’s bleak business prospects. While the government and the power industry have pushed for restarting the nation’s nuclear power plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, once they have cleared the tightened plant safety standards, only nine reactors at five plants have been put back online. The additional costs of safety investments required under the new Nuclear Regulation Authority standards to make the plants more resilient to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami — estimated to range from ¥100 billion to ¥200 billion for each reactor — have prompted power companies to decide to decommission 23 aging reactors so far (including the six at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant).
As popular opposition in Japan remains strong against reactivating the idled plants, there is no prospect that the construction of new plants will be approved in the foreseeable future. The drive to promote the export of nuclear power plants may have been intended to make up for the loss of demand in the domestic market. But earlier plans for Japanese makers to build plants in Lithuania and Vietnam were canceled, while a civil nuclear cooperation pact signed with India in 2016 — which was aimed at paving the way for Japanese nuclear plant exports to the country — has not resulted in any deal. Along with Hitachi’s decision to halt the U.K. project, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reportedly set to abandon its plan in Turkey.
Even without construction of new plants, there will be demand for maintaining Japan’s existing nuclear power plants, and for decommissioning its aging plants. What to do with the spent nuclear fuel and the high-level radioactive wastes from the plants will also be among the challenges that confront Japan’s nuclear power business. There will be plenty of work for the industry, and it will be crucial to develop and maintain the technology and manpower to deal with the tasks.

January 25, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , , , | Leave a comment

Greenpeace study slams Japan’s plan to dump radioactive Fukushima water into the ocean

 
Greenpeace slams Japan’s plan to dump radioactive Fukushima water into the oceanThe decision by the government and the tsunami-devastated plant’s operator to release contaminated water into the Pacific was ‘driven by short-term cost-cutting’, a new study has found, SCMP. Julian Ryall Tuesday, 22 January, 2019  Greenpeace has slammed a plan by the Japanese government and an electric utility company to release into the ocean highly radioactive water from the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Daiichi power plant, saying in a new report the decision was “driven by short-term cost-cutting”.

Released on Tuesday, the Greenpeace study condemns the decision taken after the disaster to not develop technology that could remove radioactivity from the groundwater, which continues to seep into the basement levels of three of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima.

An estimated 1.09 million tonnes of water are presently stored in more than 900 tanks at the plant, which was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, with up to 4,000 tonnes added every week.

The decision by the government and the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), to avoid developing the relevant technology “was motivated by short-term cost-cutting, not protection of the Pacific Ocean environment and of the health and livelihoods of communities along the Fukushima coast”, said Kazue Suzuki, campaigner on energy issues for Greenpeace Japan.

“We have raised the water crisis with the UN International Maritime Organisation and firmly stand with local communities, especially fisheries, who are strongly opposed to any plans to discharge contaminated water into their fishing grounds.”

The backlash against the plan jointly put forward by the government and Tepco began late last year after the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) held public hearings in Tokyo and Fukushima designed to convince local people that releasing the water into the ocean would have no impact on marine or human life.

Anti-nuclear and environmental groups had obtained data leaked from government sources, however, that showed that the water was still contaminated, triggering public anger. Tepco was forced to admit late last year that its efforts to reduce radioactive material – known as radionuclides – in the water had failed.

The company had previously claimed that advanced processes had reduced cancer-causing contaminants such as strontium-90, iodine-129 and ruthenium-106 in the water to non-detectible levels.

Despite the much-vaunted Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) plant at Fukushima, Tepco has confirmed that levels of strontium-90, for example, are more than 100 times above legally permitted levels in 65,000 tonnes of water that have already been through the ALPS system.

In one of the hearings, Tatsuhiko Sato, a resident of Naraha who only returned to his home last spring because of contamination from the nuclear accident, accused Tepco of “not gathering all the data” and failing to adequately investigate reports that dangerous levels of radionuclides were still in the water after it was treated.

Local fishermen used the public hearing to express their “strong opposition” to plans to release the water, with one, Tetsu Nozaki, pointing out that while levels of radiation in locally caught fish and shellfish have been at or below normal levels for the past three years, releasing contaminated water would “deal a fatal blow” to the local fishing industry.

There has also been anger in some nearby countries, with environmental groups demonstrating in Seoul in November and Korea Radioactive Watch declaring that releasing the water “will threaten the waters of South Korea and other neighbouring nations”.

………..The Greenpeace report concludes that the water crisis at the plant will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future – and that the only viable option to safeguard local communities and the environment is to continue to store the water.

“The Japanese government and Tepco set an objective of ‘solving’ the radioactive water crisis by 2020 – that was never credible,” said Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany.

“The reality is that there is no end to the water crisis at Fukushima, a crisis compounded by poor decision-making by both Tepco and the government. Discharging into the Pacific is the worst option and must be ruled out.”https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2183175/greenpeace-slams-japans-plan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-water

January 24, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Japan’s plans to sell nuclear plants overseas have been derailed

Plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed, Japan Times, 20 Jan 19, With the decision by Hitachi Ltd. to “freeze” its plan to build two nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, all of the overseas nuclear power plant projects pursued by Japanese firms — with the backing of the government seeking to promote export of nuclear power technology as a key pillar of its efforts to boost infrastructure sales in overseas markets — have now effectively been derailed.

……… Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long taken the initiative to promote the overseas sale of Japanese nuclear power plants through top-level diplomacy. However, the nuclear power plant business cannot be a part of the nation’s growth strategy if its business feasibility is in doubt. The government and related industries need to face up to the situation surrounding the nuclear power business — which continues to face difficulties domestically as well — and reassess the way forward.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, has radically changed the global nuclear power market landscape. The cost of nuclear power, which had been promoted as a relatively inexpensive and “clean” source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide, spiked as additional safety investments inflated plant expenses.

The cost of Hitachi’s project to build the two reactors in Anglesey, Wales, which began in 2012, has ballooned from the initial estimate of ¥2 trillion to ¥3 trillion. Another project pursued by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to build four reactors in Turkey has also been hampered by the swelling cost — which reportedly shot up from an initially estimated ¥2.1 trillion to ¥5 trillion. Toshiba Corp. has pulled out from the overseas nuclear power business after the huge losses incurred by its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. in its nuclear power plant projects in the United States.

Even with a spike in plant construction costs, the nuclear power business would make economic sense if the expected earnings surpass the investments. But Hitachi reportedly decided to halt the U.K. project after it became clear that even with public support from the British government it could not possibly realize profits………

Behind the government’s drive to promote the sale of nuclear power plants overseas has been the domestic market’s bleak business prospects. While the government and the power industry have pushed for restarting the nation’s nuclear power plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, once they have cleared the tightened plant safety standards, only nine reactors at five plants have been put back online. The additional costs of safety investments required under the new Nuclear Regulation Authority standards to make the plants more resilient to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami — estimated to range from ¥100 billion to ¥200 billion for each reactor — have prompted power companies to decide to decommission 23 aging reactors so far (including the six at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant).

As popular opposition in Japan remains strong against reactivating the idled plants, there is no prospect that the construction of new plants will be approved in the foreseeable future. The drive to promote the export of nuclear power plants may have been intended to make up for the loss of demand in the domestic market. But earlier plans for Japanese makers to build plants in Lithuania and Vietnam were canceled, while a civil nuclear cooperation pact signed with India in 2016 — which was aimed at paving the way for Japanese nuclear plant exports to the country — has not resulted in any deal. Along with Hitachi’s decision to halt the U.K. project, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reportedly set to abandon its plan in Turkey.

Even without construction of new plants, there will be demand for maintaining Japan’s existing nuclear power plants, and for decommissioning its aging plants. What to do with the spent nuclear fuel and the high-level radioactive wastes from the plants will also be among the challenges that confront Japan’s nuclear power business. There will be plenty of work for the industry, and it will be crucial to develop and maintain the technology and manpower to deal with the tasks. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/01/20/editorials/plans-sell-nuclear-plants-overseas-derailed/#.XETUVtIzbGg

January 21, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Time to retire Japan’s aging nuclear reactor at Genkai 

Decision looms on aging nuclear reactor at Genkai  https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190117_34/ The operator of a nuclear power plant in western Japan says it plans to decide early this year whether to scrap one of the plant’s reactors, or extend its life.

On Thursday, Kyushu Electric Power Company President Kazuhiro Ikebe revealed the plan during a meeting with the governor of Saga Prefecture that hosts the Genkai plant.

Ikebe said his firm is looking into technical aspects of the plan, including whether the aging reactor could meet the stricter regulations introduced after the March 2011 nuclear accident.

The No.2 reactor at Genkai will turn 40 years old in March 2021. It has been offline since January 2011.

Post-disaster guidelines limit the operation of reactors to 40 years in principle, but allow extensions of up to 20 years with approval of the nuclear regulation authority.

Governor Yoshinori Yamaguchi told Ikebe that he hopes society will reduce its dependence on nuclear energy and eventually be nuclear-free.

Yamaguchi said the utility must understand that the decision it takes will come under public scrutiny.

Kyushu Electric put Genkai’s No.3 and No.4 reactors back online last year, but decided to decommission the No.1 reactor.

If the utility wants to extend the operation of the No.2 reactor, it must file an application with the government by March next year and take additional safety measures.

January 21, 2019 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a comment

Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of the Japan Business Federation gave a gloomy view of nuclear power’s future

Hitachi chief’s remarks on nuclear industry spark debate, Japan Times, BY PHILIP BRASOR , 20 Jan 19, On Jan. 1, Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), held press interviews on the outlook of the business community and, at one point, the discussion turned to nuclear energy.

Nakanishi is also the chairman of Hitachi Ltd., a major supplier of nuclear technology, and he said that the commercial possibilities for nuclear energy in Japan, for both “clients,” meaning power companies, and “vendors,” meaning plant manufacturers such as Hitachi, were increasingly limited. If clients can’t make a profit, then neither can vendors, and that will continue to be the case as long as the public is opposed to nuclear energy. The industry can’t force nuclear power on the citizens of a democracy.

Major media were presumably represented at the interviews, but only one outlet, All-Nippon News Network (ANN), reported Nakanishi’s nuclear-related comments. Jan. 1 was a newspaper holiday, which means that no newspapers were published on Jan. 2, but there was still no other mention of his remarks on Jan. 3. On Jan. 5, journalist Hajime Takano commented on this lack of interest to former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on the latter’s web channel for his East Asian Community Institute. The head of Hitachi, a key company in nuclear technology, had said that the business of nuclear energy is impossible without public support. Since nuclear energy is national policy, the ramifications are huge, Takano said, and yet no other major media had covered the remarks or ANN’s report. Were they afraid of upsetting the government?

As Takano pointed out, the Tokyo Shimbun, which as a regional newspaper doesn’t qualify as “major media” and tends to question the government’s nuclear policy, did mention Nakanishi’s remarks on its front page on Jan. 5, suggesting that the Hitachi chairman was no longer aligned with the administration on nuclear energy. Almost eight years after the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, no nuclear plants in eastern Japan have resumed operation and, without an economic rationale for nuclear power, the policy is pointless.

But the Tokyo Shimbun also reported that Nakanishi said Japan does not have the right environment for renewable energy. This qualification seemed to imply that nuclear power was still preferable, but only if the public could be persuaded to accept it. So while part of Nakanishi’s remarks might give the impression that Japan’s nuclear power industry is throwing in the towel, they need to be contextualized within the larger picture of Hitachi’s business.

……… Ever since Japanese nuclear plant expansion ground to a halt after the Fukushima disaster, the government has promoted overseas nuclear development as a growth strategy, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the lead international salesman. However, proposed projects in Vietnam, Taiwan and other places have stalled one after another. The collapse of the British project, which was formally announced Thursday, may be the final nail in the coffin.

In that light, Nakanishi’s new year remarks sound fatalistic, but pundits hear something different. Nikkan Gendai interviewed former trade ministry official Shigeaki Koga, who pointed out that Japan’s nuclear energy players are dependent on the government. Without support, there was no way private power companies or vendors could have made money on nuclear energy. They essentially stuck with it because it was national policy. Nakanishi’s remarks, Koga said, were really veiled threats directed at the government: If you don’t help us financially and legally, then we will have no choice but to get out of the nuclear business. If you want us to continue, he added, it’s your job to convince the public that nuclear energy is worth it………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/19/national/media-national/hitachi-chiefs-remarks-nuclear-industry-spark-debate/#.XETXadIzbGg

January 21, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

Hitachi boss just like proverbial general fighting the last war

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A new nuclear power plant planned by Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., would have been situated on the island of Anglesey in Wales
January 19, 2019
“Generals always fight the last war” is an aphorism meaning that military leaders tend to draw upon their experiences from the previous war when planning a new strategy.
Their strategy is doomed to failure because of their inability to keep up with the times by staying abreast of technological renovations and exploring new types of warfare.
Their counterparts seem to exist in present-day Japan.
Trying to “fight the last war,” such individuals are to be found among nuclear plant manufacturers as well as within the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Apparently, they cannot forget the good old 2000s, the era of global “Nuclear Renaissance.”
Memories of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were starting to fade into oblivion then, and that helped revive nuclear plant construction. And with the nuclear industry becoming energized in various countries, Japan was determined to grab a share of the pie, and both the public and private sectors joined forces to push nuclear plant export.
And unbelievably, they keep this up even after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.
Did they believe the Fukushima disaster would have little impact on the rest of the world?
They were utterly wrong, of course. Nuclear plant construction costs skyrocketed due to reinforced safety standards.
One after another, export projects were aborted. A Hitachi project in Britain was frozen. Losses amounting to 300 billion yen wiped out the bulk of annual profit.
It is hard to believe that Japanese industry and the government, which bear grave responsibility for the Fukushima disaster, could have been so oblivious to change.
Or could it be that they were simply unable to think straight because they could not find a business they could sell to the rest of the world?
Hitachi Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi is also chairman of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation). At a recent news conference, Nakanishi created a stir by strongly advocating restarts of off-line nuclear reactors.
Is he growing frustrated and impatient over stalled exports? He obviously is totally out of touch with Japanese public opinion that has grown sensitive to the risks inherent in nuclear power generation.
I am convinced Nakanishi is the proverbial general who keeps fighting the last war.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201901190015.html?fbclid=IwAR0oGSkbBdKlzfhpB8mYoSajCUrMriM0IWmr7r_2PWwNi3DJ_kUP27QkCI8

January 20, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

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