Interim Storage Facility Starts Its Operation

To start operation of an interim storage facility of spent nuclear fuels, Aomori Prefecture, City of Mutsu and the operator reached an agreement for safety, which would be a condition for carrying the fuel into the facility. It will be the first case for spent nuclear fuels in Japan to be stored outside the site of nuclear power plant. Since the agreement determines that the storage is limited for fifty years, the government of Japan needs to find somewhere for the final storage.

There are 18 thousand metric tons of spent nuclear fuels, which were produced from nuclear power plants in Japan. They are stored in each nuclear power plant, since there is no facility in Japan for final disposal of those fuels. However, the government of Japan promotes project of recycling the fuels, the first factory for reprocessing spent nuclear fuels in Rokkasho Village in Aomori, which construction started in 1993, has yet completed due to technological troubles.

 

The government of Japan decided to build an interim facility for spent nuclear fuels which had been kept on increasing with nuclear power generation. City of Mutsu expressed its willingness to accept the facility. But, the facility was built in 2013. However, it has not been operated due to prolonged inspection of Nuclear Regulation Authority or necessity of additional measures for safety.

 

The Governor of Aomori Prefecture, Soichiro Miyashita, a former mayor of Mutsu City, announced acceptance of carrying the nuclear fuels into the facility in Mutsu in July. Aomori Prefecture, Mutsu City and Recyclable-Fuel Storage Company, the operator of the interim storage facility, exchanged safety agreement in August. It is likely that the first spent fuel will be brought from Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in September.

 

The greatest concern of the residents in Aomori is whether the nuclear wastes brought in will really be taken out to somewhere else within fifty years. While the fuels are supposed to be sent to the reprocessing factory in Rokkasho village, there is no perspective about when the factory will start its operation. There are some views of experts that recycling project of spent nuclear fuels are already bankrupted. If the government cannot find the place for sending the stored fuels, it is possible that the facility in Mutsu will not only be an interim but permanent storage facility.

 

The same kind of concern exist in Fukushima. Two local governments accepted to build an interim facility for nuclear waste, including soil in Fukushima contaminated by emission of radioactive ashes from exploded Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, with a promise of sending the waste out to somewhere else within thirty years. The government of Japan has not found the final place for the nuclear waste to go. It is notable that the government started discharging “processed” water into the Pacific Ocean, when it could not, or refused to, find the place for storage anymore.