Interim Storage Facility in Northeastern Japan to Receive N-Fuel Soon

Mutsu, Aomori Pref., Sept. 26 (Jiji Press)--A temporary storage facility in northeastern Japan will likely receive the first batch of spent nuclear fuel soon, after a cargo vessel believed to carry the fuel docked and the shipment was unloaded at a nearby port on Thursday morning.

The vessel likely carrying one cask containing 69 units of spent nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, arrived at the port of Mutsu, a city in Aomori Prefecture that hosts the storage facility.

Work to transport spent nuclear fuel to the facility, operated by Recyclable-Fuel Storage Co., or RFS, is expected to begin on a full scale as early as next month, if the Nuclear Regulation Authority finds no issues with the procedure.

The start of the storage facility's operations is expected to give a boost to the Japanese government's plans to promote nuclear power generation, given that the capacity of fuel storage pools at nuclear power plants in the country is reaching the limit.

The interim storage facility plays an important role in Japan's plans to establish a nuclear fuel cycle, in which uranium and plutonium are extracted from spent nuclear fuel and then reprocessed for use at nuclear plants.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]