Draft of Report for Nuclear Waste Approved

An experts’ meeting of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) approved revised draft of the report on literature survey about location of final disposal site for high-level radioactive nuclear waste in two municipalities in Hokkaido. Although the ministry hopes to proceed to the second stage of outline survey, which includes boring survey, it is still unclear whether the ministry will be able to achieve approval from of the governor of Hokkaido, whose consent is necessary for the next stage.

The meeting released the first draft of a final report of literature survey in February. The survey was conducted about the town of Suttsu and village of Kamoenai from 2020. Both are located on the western Hokkaido, facing the Sea of Japan. The draft indicated that whole town of Suttsu and a part of Kamoenai could be candidates for proceeding to the next stage of survey.

 

The revised draft was made with further discussion by the experts. They concluded that whole area of the land of Suttsu and seabed offshore the town would be preferable. They excluded the land of Kamoenai, which is within 15 kilometers from Mt. Shakotan. Mt. Shakotan is supposed to have erupted around 2.5 – 2 million years ago.

 

A periphery of 15 kilometers from a volcano which became active in the Quaternary period, between 258 million years ago and now, is ruled out as the location for final disposal site. Most area of the village was included in the periphery of Mt. Shakotan, only the southernmost area of Kamoenai was included for the candidate for the site.

 

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NUMO), an authorized body of METI, released a map of Japan which indicated the places preferable or unpreferable for final disposal site in 2017. According to the map, the central area of Suttsu was included in one of the unpreferable places in the map. However, the central Suttsu was turned into “the preferable” in the revised draft with consideration of additional data.

 

Another volcano in Kamoenai, adding to Mt. Shakotan, is added to a possibility of affecting disposal site. If it proves to have been active in the Quaternary period, whole area of Kamoenai will be included in “the unpreferable.” Nevertheless, Suttsu and Kamoenai were included in the candidates for the second stage of survey. It is possible that the experts expanded the preferable area as much as they can.

 

It is necessary for NUMO to achieve approval of the governor of Hokkaido for proceeding to the second stage. The governor of Hokkaido, Naomichi Suzuki, reiterates that he would oppose to go to the next stage at this moment, because Hokkaido has a principle that it would not make the land a place for disposal of nuclear waste. Suzuki released a comment that he still opposed it right after approval of the revised draft. Japan still has no viable hope to have final disposal site for nuclear fuels used in the nuclear power plants.

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