{"id":4670,"date":"2019-12-03T19:20:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T10:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4670"},"modified":"2019-12-04T18:33:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T09:33:35","slug":"news-watch-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4670","title":{"rendered":"News Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEPCO and Others\nFinancially Aiding Japan Atomic Power Co.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tokyo Electric Power\nCompany Holdings (TEPCO) and Tohoku Electric Power Co. have decided to provide\nnew aid on top of that which they have provided in the past to the Japan Atomic\nPower Co. (JAPC). JAPC aims to restart the Tokai No. 2 Power Station, with a\nview to aiming for 60 years of operation, despite the lack of any financial\nbasis for doing so. Three other electric power companies, Kansai Electric Power\nCo. (KEPCO), Hokuriku Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power Co., are also\nsaying they will provide additional aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TEPCO decided on October\n28 and Tohoku Electric Power on October 31 at their respective board of\ndirectors\u2019 meetings to provide the aid. Neither, however, has made clear the total\namount of aid that they deem necessary (mass media reports say the five\ncompanies will bear a total of about 350 billion yen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also\ndifferences in the methods TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power will use to provide\nthe aid. TEPCO is paying in advance for the electric power it will purchase\nafter the Tokai No. 2 Power Station is restarted, while Tohoku Electric Power\nhas announced it will provide a loan guarantee for funds borrowed to cover the\nconstruction costs needed by JAPC in fiscal year 2019. It is difficult to\nimagine that the loan guarantee will be limited to that company, and we wonder\nwhat will really happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Tokai No. 2 Power\nStation is restarted, it will stabilize JAPC\u2019s operations, benefiting both\nTEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power. TEPCO will receive the electric power supply\nit paid for in advance, meanwhile Tohoku Electric Power explains that it\ndoesn\u2019t consider itself to be providing aid, because it will not be taking over\nJAPC\u2019s debts. Regardless of whether the restart can go forward, though, the\nfact is even if it does, whether it can produce sufficient electricity, and even\nthen, whether JAPC\u2019s operations will, in fact, be stabilized all remain\nuncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even assuming the\nrestart happens, if much time is taken doing so, the allowable operating period\nwill be shortened by that much. It is said the reactor needs to operate for at\nleast 15 years for the construction costs of safety measures to be recovered.\nEven if the restart is achieved in January 2023 as JAPC assumes, that would\nleave no more than 16 years before it reaches 60 years of operation. It can be\nsaid with certainty that the costs will not be recovered. There is no precedent\nanywhere in the world of a nuclear reactor operating for 60 years, so not only\nare there possible delays, but the operating period might be curtailed and the\nreactor shut down even before the authorized period is up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fukushima Prefecture to\nFile Suit to Evict Fukushima Nuclear Accident Victims from Housing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fukushima\nPrefectural Assembly passed a bill on October 3 with a majority vote for the\nprefecture to file a suit seeking the eviction of five households that had\nevacuated from outside the areas under evacuation orders as a result of the\naccident at TEPCO\u2019s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (autonomous\nevacuees). These families continue to reside in national public officers\u2019\nhousing in Tokyo, but have not signed contracts after the free housing\nprovision period expired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prefecture cut off\nprovision of free housing to autonomous evacuees at the end of March 2017, but\nprovided the supportive measure of concluding contracts at the same cost as for\npublic officers for a period of two years for those households that had\nevacuated to national public officers\u2019 housing outside the prefecture and who\nwished to remain there. The five households had evacuated from Iwaki and\nsimilar municipalities. The prefecture filed the suit seeking their eviction\nand back payment of rent on their housing for the period starting from April\n2017, because they had failed to agree to the details of the contract and had\ncontinued residing there without paying rent or signing contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nuclear Accident\nVictims Group Liaison Council (Hidanren) called the decision unacceptable,\nsaying, \u201cWhatever happened to their humanitarian viewpoint of \u2018Standing close\nto every last one of the evacuees\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are they Fiddling\nwith the Timing of Regular Inspections of Sendai Units 1 and 2? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyushu Electric Power notified\nJapan\u2019s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) on October 3 that it had revised its\noperating plans for Sendai Units 1 and 2 to hold the regular inspection of Unit\n1 from March 16 and that of Unit 2 from May 20, 2020. These dates both happen\nto be one day before the deadline for constructing facilities for responding to\nspecific severe accidents at each of the respective reactors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term \u201cfacilities for\nresponding to specific severe accidents\u201d refers to equipment for controlling\nthe release of radioactive substances in the case of a major accident, or the\nthreat of one, resulting in serious damage to reactor cores and so on, due to terrorist\nacts such as aircraft strikes on buildings. They consist of equipment for\nreducing the pressure inside the reactor pressure vessel and for spraying water\ninto the reactor containment vessel, along with other items such as vents with\nsecond filters, power supply facilities, and emergency and communications\nequipment for controlling all of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NRA decided on April\n24 to order a halt to operations if the deadline for completing these\nfacilities was exceeded. In response, to avoid the disgrace of being ordered to\nhalt its operations, Kyushu Electric Power chose to move its regular\ninspections forward (by nearly a year in the case of Unit 2). During that time,\nthey aim to complete the needed facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operations to Remove Monju\u2019s Fuel Begin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuel removal operations at the Monju fast breeder reactor, undergoing decommissioning, got underway on September 17 with transference of fuel assemblies from the reactor core to external fuel storage tanks. The removal of 100 assemblies, less than the originally scheduled 110 assemblies, was completed by October 11. At the time of its decommissioning, the Monju reactor had 370 fuel assemblies in its reactor core and another 160 assemblies in external fuel storage tanks (originally supposed to be temporary storage facilities). The object of these operations will be to transfer all of these to aqueous fuel storage facilities (a fuel pool). First, from August 31, 2018 to January 2019, 86 fuel assemblies (originally scheduled as 100) were transferred from the external fuel storage tanks to the fuel pool. With the space created in the external storage tanks, the fuel could be removed from the reactor core and transferred to the spent fuel pool for a while. All of the fuel assemblies are planned to be transferred by December 2022. Decommissioning measures to be implemented subsequently will be delivery of unused fuel to businesses in Japan or abroad who are authorized to handle it, and transference of spent fuel to businesses in Japan or abroad who are authorized to handle such material, so that it can be reprocessed in Japan or in countries with which Japan has entered into agreements for cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear power. Nothing concrete has been planned, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEPCO and Others Financially Aiding Japan Atomic Power Co. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) and Tohoku Electric Power Co. have decided to provide new aid on top of that which they have provided...<\/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":[90,39,89,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-of-nuclear-power","category-monju","category-fukushima-daiichi-evacuees","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670","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=4670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4671,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions\/4671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}