Considering Dismantlement of Reactors

Partly realizing limit of sustainability of nuclear power generation, power companies in Japan began to consider dismantling obsolete nuclear reactors. Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. is projecting dismantlement of two old reactors in Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture. Other companies in western part of Japan also take a look at the possibility of the dismantlement. Strict regulation on safety, introduced after the disaster in Fukushima, made nuclear power generation extremely expensive. Power companies realized true cost of nuclear at last.

KEPCO had been planning to maintain the reactors number one and two in Mihama for sixty years, before revised Nuclear Reactors Regulation Act passed in the Diet last year. The act determined that life of a nuclear reactor to be forty years and a power company would need to introduce a great amount of asset investment for enhancing safety measures to extend the term. Two reactors in Mihama have already been over forty years old.

To keep those two reactors in operation, the company has to take special inspection for checking deterioration of devices. The result needs to be submitted to Nuclear Regulation Authority. Even if the reactors pass the special inspection, they need to pass application test for new regulation. Considering relatively little contribution of those old reactors to overall power generation, KEPCO will realize two reactors in Mihama as no use.

However, it also costs to dismantle old reactors. Fifty billion yen is supposed price for one reactor. Used nuclear fuel rods will also be a big problem, because there is no place in Japan for them to go. NRA needs to make new regulation for storing old fuel rods for over three hundred years. Since power companies have to capitalize special deficit stemming from the dismantlement on its balance sheet, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is creating new account rule for them.

Expecting supports from national government, the power companies in Kyushu, Chugoku and Shikoku also consider dismantling reactors. Seven reactors out of fifty in Japan will excess forty years old in July 2016. Maintaining them will be burden for power companies, which have already suffered from accumulation of excessive cost. They are eventually acknowledging the great impact of nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

On the other hand, the government takes a policy to allow resumption of halted nuclear reactors, which will be guaranteed as safe. The power companies believe that scrap-and-build will help their management improve. But, whether all reactors will pass safety test is highly unclear. There can be another new prediction of great earthquake, which may make NRA more careful. It is fair to say that nuclear power generation is already too expensive in this county.