October 28, 2011

Monthly Press Conference

Today, President Kawai made monthly press conference in Aomori City and talked about the "current status of our activities at the Reprocessing Plant" and "New Nuclear Framework Developing Committee".

"Current status of our activities at the Reprocessing Plant"

There are currently deliberations underway regarding our emergency safety measures at the Aomori Prefecture Nuclear Safety Measures Examination Committee. JNFL is utilizing this period to implement individual inspections of equipment, such as glass material feed system in the vitrification cell of the glass melting furnace, as well as vitrified waste handling equipment. Although we have performed equipment inspection once already, re-inspection is being steadily promoted starting this month, to re-confirm the performance with more certainty.
As for training, JNFL had previously performed nighttime training for approx. 400 operators in a scenario assuming station blackout. This training was performed twice this month, and training has been completed for all operators.
JNFL has implemented organizational changes of the Reprocessing Business Division on the October 14. The purpose of this change was to unify the Plant Operation and Maintenance Departments. This will allow for improvement of coordination between operation and maintenance, as well as to further clarify individual responsibilities. We intend to work toward further improvement of ability and skills of the operators with in the plant.

"New Nuclear Framework Developing Committee"

Serious deliberations regarding nuclear power have begun this month. These deliberations include issues such as the nuclear fuel cycle.
Aomori Prefectural Assembly Chairman has submitted a report on October 19 to the national government. This report calls for the early determination of nuclear energy policies by the government, including fuel cycle policy. Also, on October 26, Rokkasho Village Mayor and Village Assembly Chairman submitted a request covering issues such as steady promotion of nuclear fuel cycle business.
Aomori Governor attended the "New Nuclear Framework Developing Committee" held at the Atomic Energy Commission which took place two days ago. The Governor made various statements at this committee, which included: the importance of finding the optimum combination of energy sources which includes nuclear energy; the history of fuel cycle business acceptance by Aomori prefecture, which took place after confirming that these facilities were vital to national government energy and nuclear energy policies; and the promotion of said business with the full cooperation of prefectural citizens.
As the Chairman of the Prefectural Government Association on Nuclear Power, the Governor also strongly demanded shrewd and realistic deliberation which fully took current siting area conditions into consideration. This Association is comprised of the governors of 14 prefectures where nuclear power stations are sited.
JNFL hopes to fully reflect these thoughts in future fuel cycle policy deliberations, because the residents of siting areas have a strong investment in nuclear power. The citizens of Aomori prefecture have high hopes that their experiences will be fully considered in future deliberations. These experiences include: their cooperation with national government energy policies for over 25 years; acceptance of spent fuel from stations nationwide becoming possible only with the understanding of prefectural citizens; and the stable supply of electricity from nuclear power stations becoming possible due to said acceptance.
Provisional calculation results for nuclear fuel cycle costs were announced at this committee. These costs are part of overall nuclear power generation costs. As with the investigations conducted during previous policy overviews, the current processing model was proven to be slightly more costly than the direct processing model. Although, we understand that the present fuel cycle policy has been basically kept.
Despite all of this, however, we still believe the meaningfulness and necessity of fuel cycle business remains unchanged. This is after taking facets such as "securing resources" and "environmental protection" into account.
JNFL is well aware that fuel cycle policy chose reprocessing as its basic policy as the result of deliberation from various viewpoints. These viewpoints include economic efficiency, securing energy security into the future, and environmental compatibility.
At present, approximately 17,000 tons of spent fuels have already been produced. Although the actual amount may depend on the scale of the role played by nuclear power, spent fuel will always be produced as long as generation continues. How should we handle this fuel? we believe that Japan, as a nation with very few resources, must effectively utilize spent fuel as yet another resource by reprocessing it.
Another reason to continue reprocessing is the difficulty of environmental protection when choosing direct processing. This difficulty does, however, stem from the various issues to consider for direct processing in Japan. These include: the current lack of technological knowledge in Japan regarding direct processing; the fact that waste products such as plutonium are disposed of as-is; the high toxicity and amounts of heat generated this creates; and the extremely long amounts of time required for effects of radiation to decrease due to this. Accordingly, a final processing site will be required regardless of processing method. However, a vast amount of space will be required for direct processing when compared to reprocessing into vitrified waste.
While attending the New Nuclear Framework Developing Committee, Governor Mimura has stated that all parties must be aware that any changes to current policy would require further expenditures.
Although deliberations will likely continue in the future, JNFL hopes these deliberations will be performed calmly, consider the mid-to-long-term viewpoint, accurately reflect the hopes of siting area residents, and realistically consider the present state of affairs.