Sep\/Oct 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4th<\/sup>\nReshuffled Abe Cabinet Inaugurated <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The fourth reshuffled cabinet of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo\u2019s\nadministration was inaugurated on September 11. Koizumi Shinjiro was appointed\nEnvironment Minister and Minister of State for Nuclear Emergency Preparedness.\nHe is the second son of former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, who has made prominent\ncalls for zero nukes. In response to a reporter\u2019s question about nuclear power\nat a press conference on September 11, exactly eight and a half years after the\nGreat East Japan earthquake, Minister Koizumi said, \u201cI want to continue\nconsidering what we can do to get rid of [nuclear power], not what we can do to\nsave it,\u201d but was evasive on specific questions about restarts and other\ndetails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Responding to reporters\u2019 questions at a press conference at\nthe Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on the 12th<\/sup>, METI\nMinister Sugawara Isshu said, \u201cZero nukes is not realistic either at the\npresent time or when thinking of the future.\u201d In the past, Sugawara has\nadvocated freeing Japan from dependency on nuclear power, but he has asserted\nthat his views are not at variance with the policies of the government and METI\nfor \u201creducing dependency on nuclear power as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ASTRID Plans Withdrawn,\nNo Effect on METI\u2019s Budget <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As France\u2019s plans for the ASTRID reactor gradually unraveled\ntoward virtual abandonment, one would have thought that METI, who was using the\n\u201cjoint Japanese-French development\u201d of ASTRID as a selling point, would have\nabolished or reduced its budget for fast reactor technology development back in\nfiscal year 2020. Yet at the end of August, METI requested a budget of about\n4.1 billion yen, roughly the same as for fiscal 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the decision was made to decommission the Monju\nreactor, ASTRID was touted as an important foothold in aiming for practical\napplication of fast reactors. Even if the loss of this publicity point was a\nheavy blow, ultimately that turned out anyway to have been nothing but a\npretense for budget acquisition. Finding another name under which to continue\nthe charade seems to work fine, so in its fiscal 2020 budget request, METI\nswitched its wording from \u201cCommissions for technology development regarding\ninternational cooperation on fast reactors\u201d to the indeterminate \u201cCommissions\nfor technology development for a common base pertaining to fast reactors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To\u3000begin\u3000with,\u3000even\u3000this\u3000”Japanese-French\u3000joint\u3000development”\u3000appears\u3000in\nreality to provide no benefits whatsoever for the joint development partner\ncountry, France. A look at the published results for fiscal 2017 shows 5.14\nbillion yen of the 5.2 billion yen budget was implemented, all of which went to\nthe Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) as a commission. Of that amount, nearly\nhalf, 2.59 billion yen, was recommissioned to Mitsubishi FBR Systems, Inc.\n(MFBR). This mechanism also served to distribute funds of 1.09 billion yen to\nthe Japan Atomic Power Company, 200 million yen to the Central Research\nInstitute of Electric Power Industry and other amounts to universities and\nother recipients (leaving about 1.4 billion yen for JAEA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The letters \u201cASTRID\u201d come up in the operational details only\nin a further recommissioning from MFBR. Even then, it is only for \u201canalysis and\nbasic data acquisition,\u201d a far cry from funding for the purpose of\nconstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that regarding the Monju reactor, the Ministry of\nEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has requested a\nbudget of 17.9 billion yen, the same as for fiscal 2019. That breaks down into\n2.5 billion yen for reactor decommissioning and 15.4 billion yen for safety\nmeasures and operation & maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TEPCO, Chubu\nElectric, Hitachi and Toshiba Reach Agreement on Joint Enterprise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The four companies of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings\n(TEPCO), Chubu Electric Power Company, Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. announced\non August 28 that they had reached a basic agreement to investigate formation\nof a joint enterprise in the boiling water reactor (BWR) business. In a press\nrelease, they said, \u201cThe four companies include some of the world’s top\nmanufacturers with manufacturing and engineering capabilities relating to the\nBWR business, and electric power companies with many years of knowledge and\nexperience in operating and maintaining nuclear power plants. Moving forward,\nby transcending the boundaries of their individual industries, and bringing\ntogether their technologies and knowledge in order to maximize synergies and\ncomplementary effects, the companies will discuss potential collaboration with\nthe aim of improving safety and economic viability and building a sustainable\nbusiness framework for maintaining and developing human resources, technologies\nand supply chains.\u201d Nevertheless, each of the four companies has its own\ndifferent views, and they diverge in terms of amenability to forming joint\nenterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In particular, not just the manufacturers, but even Chubu\nElectric are hesitant to get involved in a joint enterprise for construction of\nreactors at the Higashidori nuclear power plant (NPP) in Aomori Prefecture that\nTEPCO wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bogus Decommissioning\nPlan for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Units 1 to 5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n TEPCO President Kobayakawa Tomoaki met with Mayor Sakurai Masahiro\nof Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture on August 26 to convey his point of\nview on announcing decommissioning plans for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Units 1 to 5,\nabout which the mayor had requested a response more than two years prior. He\nasserted that at the present time, Units 1 to 5 were a needed source of\nelectricity, and said he would try to gather all the information necessary to\nmake a decision within five years of restarting Units 6 and 7, and from that\npoint onward they would \u201ctake steps that can be thought of as leading to the decommissioning\nof at least one reactor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not so much a plan to decommission the reactors, as\na threat to the mayor to withhold cooperation, saying that if they can\u2019t\nproceed with the Units 6 and 7 restarts, which public opinion and the\nprefecture oppose, they cannot consider decommissioning Units 1 to 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2019 Version of Technical\nStrategic Plan for Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On September 9, the Nuclear Damage Compensation and\nDecommissioning Facilitation Corporation announced its Technical Strategic Plan\nfor 2019 for decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi NPP. The plan clearly states\nthat the first operations to remove debris from the Unit 2 reactor will begin\nin 2021, and says the debris will be enclosed in metal containers in a dried\nstate and stored at the NPP site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Japanese government and TEPCO say that, based on this\nplan, they will revise the \u201cmedium-term roadmap toward decommissioning the\nreactors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amount of Damages\nDetermined for TEPCO\u2019s Termination of Uranium Supply Agreement <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In January 2017, following the Fukushima nuclear accident, TEPCO\nterminated a uranium supply agreement it had had with Cameco Corporation since\n2009. Seeking damages, Cameco requested arbitration through the International\nChamber of Commerce in May 2017. The arbitrators\u2019 decision was announced on\nJuly 13, awarding Cameco 40.30 million dollars, whereas Cameco had requested\n73.10 million dollars. TEPCO also incurs the 1.7 million dollar cost of the\narbitration proceedings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sep\/Oct 2019 4th Reshuffled Abe Cabinet Inaugurated The fourth reshuffled cabinet of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo\u2019s administration was inaugurated on September 11. Koizumi Shinjiro was appointed Environment Minister and Minister of State for Nuclear...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4579,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4578\/revisions\/4579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}