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Companies operating Japanese nuclear power plants will cease financially from the end of the fiscal year 2016 to rebuild nuclear fuel. This was evidenced by the financial reports of these companies on Sunday.
Japan is a country with a lack of its own energy commodities and a developed recycling policy to date. A total of 10 nuclear power stations, including Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. and Japan Atomic Power Co., according to sources close to these companies, has ceased to allocate funds from reserve funds to the reprocessing process due to the high cost of building recycling facilities.
The Japanese government, along with energy companies, is pushing for the reuse of nuclear fuel by reprocessing into a mixed oxide known as MOX fuel, which is composed of plutonium and uranium isotopes isolated from the fuel used.
End of MOX fuel reprocessing
Japan has not yet changed its policy of recycling used nuclear fuel in its original energy outlook following the accident at the Fukushima NPP in 2011. At the same time, however, the latest government energy concept in July of this year for the first time allowed the disposal of used MOX fuel as waste.
If the MOX fuel is not reworked again, it means that the normal fuel set will only be recycled once, just on the MOX.
To support the recycling process of used MOX fuel, operators have allocated a total of 230 billion yen (about 45.85 billion crowns) to the financial reserves in March 2016.
At present, Japanese power companies have only a few MOX mixed fuel reactors in operation. Kansai Electric Power Co. two reactors at Takahama NPP, Shikoku Electric Power Co. one reactor at Ikata NPP and Kyushu Electric Power Co. one reactor at NP Genkai.
Several years ago, Japan decided to reduce its plutonium reserves. The government and operators have focused on the increased use of fuel plutonium in nuclear reactors. However, if the MOX fuel used is not reworked, it becomes nuclear waste, and it is necessary to think about the possibilities of subsequent disposal of this material.
Problems in construction
Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., to which Japanese energy companies have invested, is in charge of the construction of equipment for the reprocessing of used fuel assemblies in the northeastern part of Japan, as well as the MOX fuel recycling facility, worth a total of 16 billion yen.
However, a series of problems resulted in a delay in construction. The Rokkas operating facility is now the only key to Japans closed fuel cycle policy. It can reprocess 800 tons of fuel used per year, from which it gains approximately 8 tons of plutonium.
With the withdrawal of large Japanese energy companies from financing a new MOX recycling facility, fuel can be difficult in the future to ensure the successful completion of the whole project.
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