Koizumi condemns Abe’s policy of continuing use of nuclear power — The Japan Times

” Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has become a resolute anti-nuclear campaigner following the 2011 Fukushima No. 1 meltdowns, criticized on Thursday the government’s plan to continue using nuclear power, saying it is “in breach of the election pledge” to lower reliance on nuclear power generation.

The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who sees Koizumi as a political mentor, plans for nuclear power to account for 20 percent to 22 percent of Japan’s total electricity output in 2030, compared with around 30 percent before the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Speaking at a press conference in Kagoshima Prefecture, Koizumi said the prime minister is “moving against the direction of lowering reliance on nuclear power as much as possible” as pledged by Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party during campaigning for the lower house election last year.

“Has he already forgotten what he said during the election?” asked Koizumi.

The former prime minister also criticized the government’s plan to reactivate Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear plant located in Kagoshima as early as this summer. The complex is expected to become the first nuclear facility to be restarted under a new set of tighter safety regulations introduced after the Fukushima crisis started.

Koizumi said Japan could “go without nuclear power” if Abe made up his mind to do so, urging him to reconsider the resumption plan. It is one of the very rare occasions “when a prime minister can play a historic role,” Koizumi said.

Referring to the recent volcanic eruption on a small, remote island in Kagoshima that forced all of the residents to evacuate, Koizumi added Japan is a “country which should not have nuclear power” given Japan is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and eruptions. ”

source

Japan to start Fukushima fuel debris retrieval in 2021 — World Nuclear News

” Japan expects to start the retrieval of fuel debris from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2021, the executive director of the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) said yesterday. Three of the plant’s six reactors suffered core meltdowns in the March 2011 accident, leaving melted nuclear fuel debris on the floor of their containment vessels.

NDF was established in September 2011 by the Japanese government and the country’s nuclear power plant operators to manage a fund to support operators in providing compensation to victims of nuclear accidents. Although established following the Fukushima Daiichi accident, NDF will continue to be maintained in the future as part of the Japanese nuclear liability regime.

“We expect to select the retrieval method within the next few years, after which detailed design and mock-up tests will follow,” NDF executive director Yasuharu Igarashi told delegates at the VII Atomexpo conference in Moscow. The event was hosted by Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. “For the start of retrieval of fuel debris, we are now thinking 2021,” Igarashi said.

NDF has identified three “priority methods” for retrieving highly radioactive nuclear fuel debris in three reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (Tepco’s) Fukushima Daiichi plant. They are: submersion; partial submersion top access; and partial submersion side access. The first two rely on the removal first of core internals above fuel debris, while the third requires that the reactor pressure vessel pedestal exterior component inside the primary containment vessel (PCV) and interference have first been removed.

The submersion method would remove the debris in a submerged condition, with the containment vessel filled with water to shield against radiation and prevent the spread of radioactive materials during the retrieval process. The reactor damage would need to be accurately identified and repaired before water is poured in. Partial submersion means that water would only be used when the debris has been separated from the vessel floor. The debris would be removed from either the top or the side of the vessel. This method would require continuous cooling of the retrieved debris and measures to prevent radioactive materials from scattering.

Tepco started inspections of unit 1 of the plant in April using robots mounted with cameras and radiation-measuring equipment. The shape-changing robot began surveying conditions within the PCV of the damaged unit on 10 April. However, the robot stopped working before completing its mission. The robot was developed by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy to investigate hard-to-access areas of the plant. Tepco later sent in a second robot On April 20. The company said that it had decided not to try to retrieve a second robot dispatched inside the unit to avoid it becoming blocked and impeding future missions.

Igarashi said that NDF is following five “guiding principles” for risk reduction in its strategic plan for decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant. They are that the plan is safe, proven, efficient, timely and “field-oriented”, meaning it is based on the actual conditions of the site and structures.

“The decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is a continuous risk reduction activity to protect people and the environment from the risk of radioactive materials resulting from the severe accident,” he said. “A risk reduction strategy along a mid- to long-term timeline will be designed in NDF’s strategic plan.”

The structure of NDF’s risk management strategy is to be completed by 2017, he said.

In addition to fuel debris retrieval, the strategic plan will also include a policy for waste management involving storage, processing and disposal methods, he said.

NDF has reviewed international standards for waste management, he said, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Safety Requirements Part 5 and Specific Safety Requirements-5 are “important references”. ”

source

Japan’s first reactor restart delayed to August: Kyushu Electric — Yahoo! News

” TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power said on Tuesday it has delayed the restart of its Sendai nuclear plant in southwestern Japan, the first to be brought back into service under new rules introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The delay to mid-August from the previous target of late July follows a warning by Japan’s nuclear regulator in April that the utility’s schedule for a restart was too optimistic.

All 43 of Japan’s operable nuclear reactors are currently offline. A restart of Sendai’s 890-megawatt No. 1 unit following stringent safety checks would mark the first resumption of nuclear power generation in nearly two years.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said rebooting the country’s nuclear sector is needed to cut the cost of using fossil fuels for power generation, but he faces a deeply skeptical public after the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo.

Kyushu has notified the nuclear regulator that operational checks of some facilities needed before it can start loading uranium fuel into the reactor are likely to end two weeks later than previously announced, a Kyushu spokesman said.

Delaying the restart would likely raise the consumption of fossil fuels in the peak summer demand season, the spokesman said, declining to give details.

The company made no changes to the planned restart of the 890-megawatt Sendai No. 2 reactor in late September. The No. 1 unit has been offline since May 2011 and the second unit since September that year.

Five of Japan’s reactors have received basic clearance and are at varying stages of the review process. ”

source