The Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) on 13 June approved the decommissioning plan the Tokai reprocessing plant.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) announced in September 2014 that it would permanently shut down the plant in Ibaraki prefecture and applied for permission to decommission the facility in June 2017. JAEA said it would not be financially viable to invest in the seismic safety upgrades required by Japan’s strict post-Fukushima regulatory standards.
Construction of the Tokai plant began in 1971, and it started operation in 1981. However, work stopped in 2006 when a contract for reprocessing used fuel from commercial power reactors came to an end. Since then, only vitrification activities have been carried out at the facility. The plant was used primarily for processing mixed-oxide fuel from the Fugen experimental Advanced Thermal Reactor (ATR), which ceased operating in 2003. It has reprocessed a total of some 1052t of used fuel comprising 88t from the Fugen ATR, 644t of boiling water reactor fuel, 376t of pressurised water reactor fuel and 9t of fuel from the Japan Power Demonstration Reactor.
Tokai’s decommissioning is expected to take 60-70 years and is estimated to cost JPY1,000bn ($9bn). Some JPY770bn of this will be needed for decommissioning the plant and waste disposal, while JPY217bn will be allocated for 10-year preparatory work, Kyodo said. Some 310 canisters of highly-radioactive, vitrified waste and about 360 cubic metres of radioactive water are stored at the plant site, the Kyodo news agency reported. The decommissioning plan calls for highly-radioactive waste to be buried more than 300 metres underground, intermediate-level waste to be buried "several dozen metres" underground, and low-level waste to be buried close to the surface.
In March NRA approved a 30-year plan to decommission JAEA’s prototype Monju fast breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is now considering decommissioning the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant, which is adjacent to the Fukushima Daiichi NPP damaged during the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami. Tepco president Tomoaki Kobayakawa told prefectural governor Masao Uchibori on 14 June that the company is considering decommissioning Fukushima Daini. He said he hoped the concerns of residents would be eased if the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants were decommissioned together. He noted that if the status of the Fukushima Daini plant is left undecided, reconstruction of the area would be hampered, the Kyodo news agency reported.
The Jiji Press news agency said Kobayakawa told Uchibori that Tepco "will start detailed discussions" on the decommissioning of Fukushima Daini. Jiji Press quoted chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga as saying the government “highly rates” the plan to decommission the four reactors at Fukushima Daini. The units were not damaged by the earthquake but were closed and had since been maintained in cold shutdown.
