Fukushima Governor, Masao Uchibori said on 30 July that his prefecture would accept Tokyo Electric Power Company’s decision to decommission the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant.
In a meeting with Tepco president Tomoaki Kobayakawa, he also accepted Tepco’s plan to build an on-site storage facility for used nuclear fuel. All ten nuclear reactors in the Fukushima prefecture – six at Fukushima Daiichi and four at the Daini plant, will be decommissioned.
Fukushima Daiini was also hit by the tsunami in 2011 and temporarily lost reactor cooling functions. But unlike the Daiichi plant, it escaped meltdowns.
The decision to decommission Fukushima Daiichi will leave Tepco with only the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. Decommissioning the four reactors at Fukushima Daiini is expected to take more than 40 years and cost some JPY280 billion ($2.6 billion), local media reported.
Tepco has not yet selected a final disposal site for the used fuel from Fukushima Daiini, raising concern among local residents that it may remain stored on-site for a long time. The Fukushima Daini plant currently has around 10,000 assemblies of spent fuel cooling in pools.
Decommissioning of Fukushima Daini also means that a central government annual subsidies of around JPY1 billion each for the towns of Naraha and Tomioka will eventually be terminated. Revenue linked to the nuclear plant, from property taxes and in other forms, accounted for 25% of Naraha's total revenue and 40% of Tomioka's. Uchibori said he would ask the government to take into account "the financial situation of the two towns in view of the special circumstances relating to the decommissioning”.
Photo: Fukushima Daiini (Credit: TEPCO)
