January 11, 2021 - The Japan Times japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The intermediate storage facility of Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co. located in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Utilities have revived plans to expand the use of an intermediate storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, but immediately objections were voiced by the same mayor who quashed a similar proposal two years ago.
The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC) on Dec. 17 formally announced that it would push forward with the plan to allow all utilities that operate nuclear power plants to use the intermediate storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture.
Kazuhiro Ikebe, head of FEPC, met the same day with economy minister Hiroshi Kajiyama, who oversees the nuclear power industry, and presented the proposal. Kajiyama pledged his cooperation to realize the plan.
Русский
Tokyo, Dec. 17 (Jiji Press) The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan told the central government on Thursday that it will consider joint use by power suppliers of a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in northeastern Japan.
Kazuhiro Ikebe, chairman of the power industry group, had talks with industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama and informed him of the plan to consider having member power suppliers with nuclear power plants jointly use the nuclear facility under construction in Mutsu in Aomori Prefecture. The shared use is very meaningful for the promotion of the nuclear fuel cycle policy, Kajiyama replied, suggesting that the government plans to support the joint use initiative.
The Asahi Shimbun
A consortium of electric power companies that envisaged Japan operating on a network of nuclear reactors using pluthermal generation technology is having to drastically scale back that ambitious goal.
Years ago, pluthermal energy was viewed as a dream way for Japan to generate electricity with nuclear power plants using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.
The beauty of the technology is that MOX fuel is created by recycling plutonium processed out of spent nuclear fuel.
The first pluthermal plan compiled in 1997 set a goal of building 16 to 18 nuclear reactors using MOX fuel by fiscal 2010.
Currently, four reactors in Japan use the fuel.
Waste from nuclear fuel must be stored for more than a million years/
“Salt can be present in the ambient air and environment anywhere, not just near the ocean. We need to be able to plan for extended long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future it’s a national reality,”
Sandia to put nuclear waste storage canisters to the test, https://www.newswise.com/articles/sandia-to-put-nuclear-waste-storage-canisters-to-the-test,
Scientists will explore science of cracks caused by corrosion,
10-Dec-2020 , by Sandia National Laboratories Newswise ALBUQUERQUE, N.M
. Sandia National Laboratories is outfitting three 22.5-ton, 16.5-feet-long stainless-steel storage canisters with heaters and instrumentation to simulate nuclear waste so researchers can study their durability.