2020.03 Japanese Nuclear Industry Notes

2020.03

Japanese nuclear industry highlights 2020.03

• What to do with the decontaminated water from Fukushima NPP? In an interview to the representative of the company in charge of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors (福島第一廃炉カンパニー), Akira Kono, mentioned that the decision of releasing the decontaminated water (with high content of tritium) will be left to the government due to the social and economical implications, and that the understanding of tritium should be further pursued.

• Corrupted relationship Kanden (関西電力) and Takahama Gov. A third party investigation committee found the beginning of corrupted connection of the city of Takahama and Kansai-electric. This relationship dates to 1985, when reactors 3 and 4 of Takahama NPP began operations. A company that imports wood in Takahama sued Kanden due to the temperature rise of the sea water that provoked pullulation of a beetle that eats wood. To solve this situation, the former vice president of Kanden (内藤千百里（ちもり）) asked a former Takahama City official (森山栄治) to intervene in this situation. The solution was to buy the land (gained from the sea, about 9ha) of the affected company in a sum that doubled the actual price. This investigation is due to the bribery scandal reported last year concerning Kanden and Takahama City officials.
  
   The results of this investigation were published on March 14, and the report confirms and explains the mechanisms through which Moriyama gave money to 75 Kanden employees to favor construction companies (like 吉田開発Co., 柳田産業Co., オーイング, 塩浜工業Co.) related to him with contracts. Since 1987 and for 30 years, he gave briveries to Kanden personal, but the number of persons and amounts increased rapidly after the Fukushima disaster.

• Compensation for victims (Fukushima nuclear disaster). On March 12, the judge Kobayashi, at the high court of Sendai, decided in favor of the plaintiffs (a group of 216 victims) to increase the compensation sum (149 million yens) to add 706 million to be paid by TEPCO. This is the first of about 30 cases in process. This amount represent a large increase compared to what was originally considered by the law of compensation to victims of disasters before 3.11.

• Suspending operations at NPP for unfinished antiterror works. Finally, the 5 year limit came for the first NPP that restarted after 3.11. On March 16th, the Sendai Reactor No. 1 (川内) was turned off for a programed revision but it will not restart, for the 5 year limit to conclude the antiterrorist works came on this month’s 18th day. The idea now is to hurry up with these works to restart the reactor on December, this year. As well, the 5 year time limit will come later this year for other 4 reactors that are operating now.
  Sendai R2 – May
  Takahama R3 and R4 – August
  The energy input of these facilities will be covered by fossil fuel power plants.
  

• Ikata NPP. Modifications of failure reports. The reports and plan of actions to undertake in order to repair and avoid more failures at Ikata NPP (due to the incidents on January this year [see: https://blog.goo.ne.jp/2ap/e/dfab898a1a7249ff215a374fbfd6663a]) were widely modified. One of the modifications was about the incident on January 12, of a control rod extraction failure. The original report said it was due to oxidation on the tip of the rod in contact with the extraction mechanism, then this explanation was discarded on March 17th. The governor of Ehime Prefecture (中村時広) said that experts of the prefecture will be appointed to strictly inspect the NPP. 

• False information from Genkai NPP. The prefecture of Nagasaki reported that the person in charge of monitoring parameters such as the radiation in a 30km range from Genkai NPP has published false information repeatedly and mistreated data.
  

*All the information presented in this entrance was taken from the electrolic news paper Asahi-Shinbum