The UN nuclear watchdog chief yesterday visited Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, a day after Tokyo approved an energy plan that marks a return to nuclear power.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is monitoring Japan’s efforts to decommission the Fukushima plant after a 2011 earthquake-triggered tsunami killed 18,000 people and set off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
As IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi arrived in Japan on Tuesday, the Cabinet adopted a plan to increase reliance on nuclear power to help meet growing energy demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and microchip factories.
Photo: AFP
“At a moment where Japan is embarking on a gradual return to nuclear energy in its national energy mix, it is important that this is also done in complete safety and with the confidence of the society,” Grossi said after meeting Japan’s foreign minister.
Japan had previously vowed to “reduce reliance on nuclear power as much as possible.”
However, the pledge was dropped from the latest Strategic Energy Plan — which includes an intention to make renewables the country’s top power source by 2040.
Photo: AFP
Under the plan, nuclear power would account for about 20 percent of Japan’s energy supply by 2040, up from 5.6 percent in 2022.
The shift back to nuclear power comes as Japan contends with how to remove about 880 tonnes of radioactive debris from the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors.
So far, only one tiny sample has been retrieved by a robotic claw.
Grossi, making his fifth visit to Fukushima, viewed the vast “interim” contaminated soil storage facilities near the plant for the first time.
About 13 million cubic meters of soil — enough to fill 10 stadiums — was scraped from the region to remove radiation.
About 300,000m3 of ash from incinerated organic material is also being stored.
Reporters yesterday saw trucks and construction vehicles going back and forth between several spots where hundreds of large soil-filled black bags were stacked.
Japan plans to recycle about 75 percent of the soil — the portion with low radioactivity — for building projects such as road and railway embankments.
The remaining material would be disposed of outside the Fukushima region ahead of a 2045 deadline.
“In terms of the timing, which has been, of course, set by law for 2045, we believe that it is not unrealistic. It can be done,” Grossi told reporters yesterday.
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