Decommissioning

Japan / Tepco To Decommission All Four Units At Fukushima-Daini, Reports Say

By David Dalton
24 July 2019

Board expected to formally approve the decision later this month
Tepco To Decommission All Four Units At Fukushima-Daini, Reports Say
The Fukushima-Daini nuclear station could be permanently shut down and decommissioned. Pooto courtesy NRA.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) plans to permanently shut down and decommission its Fukushima-Daini nuclear power station, about 12 km south of the bigger Fukushima-Daiichi facility where three reactors melted down in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday.

Tepco president Tomoaki Kobayakawa will visit the governor of Fukushima prefecture to convey the plan and the company’s board will formally approve the decision later this month, Kyodo said, without citing sources.

Fukushima-Daini has four 1,067-MW boiling water reactors that began commercial operation between April 1982 and August 1987.

All four units have been shut down since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami which resulted in a series of equipment failures, fuel meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at nearby Fukushima-Daiichi.

In June 2018 Mr Kobayakawa said Tepco was planning to decommission all four units at Fukushima-Daini, but did not give any details of a timeframe.

Tepco operates three nuclear stations in Japan – Fukushima-Daiichi, Fukushima-Daini and the seven-unit Kashiwazaki Kariwa, in the western prefecture of Niigata.

Kashiwazaki Kariwa was not affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, although its reactors had all been offline for up to three years following a 2007 earthquake which damaged the site but did not damage the reactors themselves.

In December 2017 Units 6 and 7 at Kashiwazaki Kariwa became the first boiling water reactors to meet new regulatory standards imposed after the Fukushima-Daiichi accident., but they have not yet been restarted.

Japan shut down all 42 commercial nuclear reactors after the Fukushima-Daiichi accident.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the country’s nuclear share in 2017 was about 3.6%. Before Fukushima, Japan generated about 30% of its electricity from nuclear and planned to increase that to 40%.

Last month an energy white paper adopted by the Cabinet called for further efforts to cut carbon emissions by keeping to a nuclear generation target of 20% to 22%.

Nine units in Japan’s reactor fleet are now in commercial operation. They are Ohi-3 and -4, Genkai-3 and -4, Sendai-1 and -2, Takahama-3 and -4, and Ikata-3.

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