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Storage tanks at tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Japan is hoping to put the past behind it with a new push for nuclear power. Photo: EPA

US to partner Japan in push for next-generation nuclear technology

  • Tokyo hopes to put the Fukushima disaster in the past with a new partnership aimed at developing plutonium-burning fast reactors and advanced SMRs
  • Driving its nuclear ambitions are both a need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and secure domestic energy sources in case of a geopolitical crisis
Energy
Tokyo is embarking on a series of ambitious next-generation nuclear projects that could power Japanese industry for decades to come and go some way towards erasing the blot on its reputation caused by the Fukushima disaster.
A key element in the development of future nuclear energy technology will involve collaboration with scientists and companies in the United States, with Koichi Hagiuda, Japan’s minister of industry, holding talks with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on January 6 and agreeing to cooperate in the development of plutonium-burning fast reactors and advanced energy plants based on small modular reactors (SMRs).

In its Sixth Strategic Energy Plan, unveiled in October, the Japanese government made it clear that it intends to move on from events in northeast Japan in the aftermath of the March 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake, which triggered a tsunami that caused the melt-down of three of the six reactors at the Fukushima plant.

Fukushima is rated as the second-worst nuclear disaster in history, after Chernobyl, and thousands of people are still unable to return to their communities to this day due to elevated levels of radiation in surrounding areas.

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Fukushima evacuees return home for first overnight stay in over 10 years since nuclear disaster

Fukushima evacuees return home for first overnight stay in over 10 years since nuclear disaster

Nevertheless, in its outlook for the future, the government’s plan states that, “Stable use of nuclear power will be promoted on the major premise that public trust in nuclear power should be gained and that safety should be secured.”

Successive Liberal Democratic Party governments – frequently accused of having close ties to the nation’s influential power firms – have quietly committed themselves to nuclear energy, but that is now being ramped up with the new plans.

The support for nuclear energy was being driven by Japan’s need to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to secure energy that is not dependent on imports from other parts of the world, making it easy to disrupt in the event of a geopolitical crisis, said Tomoko Murakami, manager of the nuclear energy group at The Institute of Energy Economics Japan.

[Japan is cooperating] with US nuclear power start-up TerraPower simply because they have the required skills and knowledge
Tomoko Murakami, The Institute of Energy Economics Japan

“The Japan Atomic Energy Agency [JAEA] and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are cooperating with US nuclear power start-up TerraPower simply because they have the required skills and knowledge on fast reactors,” she said.

The first stage of the alliance will see the Japanese government investing some 900 million yen (US$7.8 million) on upgrading the AtheNa sodium experimental plant for fast reactor research in Ibaraki prefecture. Work is already under way at the plant, operated by the JAEA, and the memorandum of understanding on technological cooperation with TerraPower is to be signed before the end of January.

The system is designed to generate power by extracting heat from a reactor core with liquid sodium. The facility will also be used in the joint development of a next-generation fast reactor with the US, while work is also under way at another site, Joyo, where a test nuclear reactor utilises sodium as a coolant and to determine the impact of neutrons on fuels and other equipment.

02:58

Japan’s plan to release radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear plant into sea sparks outrage

Japan’s plan to release radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear plant into sea sparks outrage
Earlier research with France on fast reactors was put on hold, but the US has now stepped into the broader effort to promote a nuclear fuel cycle, in part because both governments are looking for ways to reduce the volume and toxicity of high-level radioactive waste generated from power plants.

Another area of priority research is SMRs, with the technology advanced to the point that the first units could be put into operation in Japan before the end of the decade.

An SMR is an entire nuclear reactor manufactured as a single module that is transported to the selected site for installation, ensuring better quality control and reduced construction times. SMRs are typically partly buried underground and have other improved safety features from conventional reactors that are presently in operation.

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While pumps are required to circulate coolant in the event of an accident at a conventional reactor – and which failed in the Fukushima disaster – SMRs can remove heat through the natural circulation of coolant. They also require less initial investment, with returns in five years instead of 20.

Before the Fukushima disaster, Japan had 54 reactors and was generating 30 per cent of its energy from atomic power with the intention to raise that to 40 per cent. As of March last year, 42 had passed stringent new safety checks but only nine reactors were operating due to strong opposition from local communities. Of the 42 reactors, 24 are expected to be decommissioned, which means that power firms and the government need to develop better and safer nuclear energy technologies.

Yet there is still widespread distrust of nuclear energy in Japan and critics say they are concerned at the government forging ahead with alliances with the US to develop new technology when so many questions still remain over safety.

Candles are lit at the J-Village soccer training centre in Fukushima prefecture on the 10th anniversary of the nuclear disaster. Photo: Kyodo

“All the media coverage has become very positive about these new developments and the technology alliance with the US, but we must remember that at the moment fast reactor technology exists only on paper and there are no guarantees that it will be a success,” said Hajime Matsukubo, secretary general of the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre.

“Japan has already spent 1 trillion yen [US$8.7 billion] on fast reactor research and another 1 trillion yen on decommissioning the experimental Monju reactor, to say nothing of what is being spent on all the work at Fukushima and decommissioning all the other reactors around the country,” he said.

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“So it’s ridiculous to spend even more on nuclear technology that so many people do not want and do not trust,” he added.

Organisations such as CNIC say the billions that have been lavished on nuclear power would have been far better spent on developing a domestic renewables sector that could have tapped into geothermal, wind, wave, solar and others – and would have been the envy of the world.

And they warn that Japan’s precarious geology means there is always a danger that Japan’s nuclear sector could suffer a repeat of the Fukushima disaster – or potentially a situation far worse.

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