The last week brought another investigation into the accidents at Fukushima Daiichi, as well as news that Tohoku Electric will no longer pursue a new nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
Recent developments related to the tsunami-triggered plant blackout at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. reactors include:
Plant Plans Abandoned
Tohoku Electric formally abandoned a proposal first aired in 1968 to build an 825 megawatt nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture. The project lost support from local municipalities after the Fukushima accidents, the Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday, and Tohoku executives recently announced the project is no longer feasible. It represents the first proposal for a new reactor to be dropped in Japan since the earthquake.
New Regulator to Conduct Investigation
The Nuclear Regulation Authority — an agency created in response to the Fukushima crisis to replace previous regulators deemed ineffective — announced this week that it will conduct its own investigation into the accidents. The Japan Daily Press reported that the investigation will likely begin late next month and could last decades as decommissioning efforts make more areas of the plant safe to inspect. While the tsunami caused the plant blackout, the investigation will also seek to answer questions about the effect of the earthquake on plant equipment. Numerous comprehensive investigations have already been conducted by political and academic organizations, but this will be the first by the new nuclear regulator.
Government Tallies Cost of Idled Reactors
Japanese lawmakers released an estimate this week of the cost to keep nearly all of the country's reactors offline in the wake of the accidents. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry concluded that the outages cost the nine utilities that own reactors a total of 1.2 trillion yen per year. That estimate includes only the cost to staff and maintain the plants while offline and does not take in the cost of fossil fuels imported to replace the power.