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Fukushima Daiichi Units 5 and 6 to be decommissioned
On December 18, 2013, Tokyo
Electric Power Company made the decision to decommission Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) Unit 5 (BWR, 784 MW) and Unit 6
(BWR, 1,100 MW) reactors as of January 31, 2014, and delivered notice
of the decision to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
Fukushima Daiichi reactors, Unit 1 (BWR, 460 MW), Unit 2 (BWR, 784 MW),
Unit 3 (BWR, 784 MW), and Unit 4 (BWR, 784 MW) were decommissioned on
April 19, 2012. Units 5 and 6 will not be dismantled in the immediate
future, but will be used as research and training facilities for the
decommissioning of Units 1 to 4.
The Fukushima Prefectural Assembly has demanded that
Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station reactor Units 1 to 4 (BWR, 1,100
MW each) also be decommissioned. The municipal assemblies of Tomioka
and Naraha, where the Fukushima Daini NPS is located, adopted the
proposal demanding the decommissioning of Fukushima Daini on December
11 and 12, 2013, respectively. On December 20, the municipal assemblies
of Ōkuma and Futaba, where Fukushima Daiichi is located, also adopted
the proposal.
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Completion of Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and Mutsu Spent Nuclear Fuel Intermediate Storage Facilities postponed
On December 19, 2013, Japan Nuclear Fuel
Ltd., owner of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant (RRP) and
Recyclable-Fuel Storage (RFS), owner of the intermediate storage
facility for spent fuel now under construction, informed the governor
of Aomori Prefecture that the completion of the individual facilities
would be postponed. The completion of the RRP was postponed from
October 2013 to October 2014. This was the 20th postponement from the
original plan. Completion of the intermediate storage facility was
postponed from October 2013 to March 2015, the third postponement thus
far.
On the same day, both facilities announced that the
seismic motion to be considered for aseismic design will be increased
from 450 gal to 600 gal. The Nuclear Regulation Authority’s new
regulation standards for nuclear fuel cycle facilities took effect on
the previous day, December 18, and the changes in completion dates were
based on the new standards. The RRP applied for the examination of
conformity to the new standards on January 7, 2014, and the RFS
followed suit on January 15. However, it is extremely unlikely they
will obtain permission soon, and further postponement is likely.
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Successive applications for examination of NPPs conformity with the new regulatory requirements submitted
On December 25, 2013, Chugoku Electric Power
sent the Nuclear Regulation Authority an application for
examination of its Shimane Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 (BWR, 820 MW)
reactor for conformity with the new regulatory requirements. Tohoku
Electric Power also submitted a similar application concerning its
Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 (BWR, 825 MW) reactor on December
27. More specifically, the companies have applied for the Permission of
Changes in Reactor Installation, for the Approval of the Construction
Plan, and for the Approval of Changes in Nuclear Power Facility
Security Regulations.
The application concerning Onagawa Unit 2 is the
first for a nuclear power plant damaged by the Great East Japan
Earthquake. After submission of the application, Shigeru Inoue,
Executive Vice President of Tohoku Electric Power, said, “There was
minor damage due to the earthquake, but onsite inspections have
confirmed the integrity of the facility.” Just exactly what the “minor
damage” consists of has not been made public, and it is unknown why the
application for Unit 2 was sent first. Tohoku Electric Power announced
that they will submit the applications for Unit 1 (BWR, 524 MW) and
Unit 3 (BWR, 825 MW) soon.
The quakes Onagawa Unit 2 was exposed to during the
great earthquake and aftershocks were greater than expected, and the
seismic motion to be considered for aseismic design was increased from
580 gal to 1000 gal, the aseismic construction being based on this
criterion. Because the plant buildings were flooded after the great
earthquake, a wave barrier of about 29 meters above sea level was also
built.
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Unprecedented process used to formulate The Basic Energy Plan
The Basic Policy Subcommittee, under the Advisory Committee for
Natural Resources and Energy, METI, drew up a conclusive report,
Opinions Concerning the Basic Energy Plan (draft), in December 2013,
and public comments on the report were solicited up to January 6, 2014.
After the publication of the report, the parenthesized word “(draft)”
was deleted before the end of the comment period: After the start of
the comment period on December 6, the report was corrected on December
13, and it was corrected again on the 17th, deleting the word “(draft)”.
The Basic Energy Plan was formulated through an
unprecedented process. The Fundamental Issues Subcommittee originally
held discussions under the Advisory Committee for Natural Resources. In
September 2012, the Democratic Party of Japan, the ruling party at the
time, decided on an energy policy that would invest all possible policy
resources into phasing out all operating nuclear power plants in the
2030s (See Nuke Info Tokyo151). However, the chairperson of the
subcommittee was dissatisfied with the decision, and did not call
further subcommittee meetings after that time. Such procrastination was
unprecedented. After the Liberal Democratic Party was returned to
power, the chairperson formed another subcommittee to draw up the
report, this time including fewer antinuclear committee members. This
was also unprecedented.
In the released Basic Energy Plan, nuclear power is
positioned as an important base power that will support the secure
framework of energy supply and demand, and will be continually used on
condition of the assurance of safety. Whatever expressions may be used
in the report, it was predictable that nuclear power would be
positioned as such, based on the process of the formulation of the Plan.
Nuclear power plants have now returned to almost the
same position as before the Fukushima accident. What is different is
that the newly formed Subcommittee presented the report to the
government not as a “Draft Basic Energy Plan” but as Opinions
Concerning the Basic Energy Plan. In the past, such a subcommittee drew
up a report by the name of a “Draft Basic Energy Plan” and the cabinet
approved it as it was, with few changes. This time the report says: “We
strongly urge that the new Basic Energy Plan be decided based on these
opinions.” When the report was corrected on December 17, an addition
was made to the effect that the Subcommittee would entrust the
determination of the ratios of energy sources to the government. The
Subcommittee probably means that the government is better able to state
clearly that it will further promote nuclear power plants.
Better or worse, the Opinions Concerning the
Basic Energy Plan includes no indication of further nuclear power
promotion. It is simply a mirror of government policy.
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Toshiba reaches agreement on the purchase of NuGen shares
On December 21, 2013, Toshiba and Iberdrola, a Spanish electricity
utility company, agreed that Iberdrola would sell Toshiba its 50% share
in NuGen, a UK company, for 8.5 million pounds. NuGen’s Moorside
project, a plan to build three nuclear power plants close to
Sellafield, will go ahead, but one of the initial investors, Scottish
and Southern Energy, which owned 25%, withdrew after the Fukushima
accident. The remaining two, Iberdrola and the French company GDF Suez,
took up the shares on a fifty-fifty basis and thus each owned 50% of
the total investment. Toshiba will also obtain part of the shares that
GDF Suez owns, and aims to ensure that AP1000 pressurized water
reactors (PWR) will be ordered from Westinghouse, Toshiba’s subsidiary,
for the project. Toshiba is likely to sell most of its shares to power
generation companies thereafter, in a similar manner as Hitachi, which
purchased Horizon Nuclear Power.
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