Motegi denied the Olympic bid was the main motivating factor. A more sustainable option, he added, would be to seek global support to confront Fukushima’s unprecedented challenges. “At a moment when international public opinion is worrying about the long-term consequences of repeated leaks at the site, Tokyo seems to obeying the short-term logic of waiting until the Olympics decision is over,” Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear energy analyst based in Paris who frequently visits Japan, said by email. Industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi and ruling party officials have said liquidating Tepco was not being considered as an option.Ĭritics said the government was mainly trying to cool down international media coverage ahead of the Olympics decision. “Tepco needs to go down and the government needs to take over,” he said, acknowledging his was a minority view in the ruling party. “Is anyone at Tepco taking responsibility for these mistakes? I haven’t heard of anyone stepping down or being fired,” said Taro Kono, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party deputy secretary general who is critical of nuclear utilities. The problems have revived notions, debated but rejected in the months after the March 2011 disaster, of liquidating Tepco or at least splitting off the Fukushima operation from its other businesses and putting it under direct government control.
That was followed by leaks from above-ground tanks used to store radiated water. Tepco, Japan’s biggest utility, has come under a fresh flood of criticism following a stream of bad news including its admission, after repeated denials, that contaminated water was flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Of that, 32 billion yen will fund the building of a massive underground wall of frozen earth around the damaged reactors to contain groundwater flows, and 15 billion yen to improve a water treatment system meant to drastically reduce radiation levels in the contaminated water. Figuring out who to bill for the costs can come later,” Economics Minister Akira Amari told a news conference.Ĭhief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a separate news conference that the government would spend a total of 47 billion yen ($473.05 million), including 21 billion yen in emergency reserve funds from this year’s budget. “This is a matter of public safety, so the country has to take the lead on this issue and respond as quickly as possible. The ultimate fate of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), also remains unclear, as does the question of who will eventually foot the bill - Japanese taxpayers, or the embattled Tepco. The sensitive job of removing spent fuel rods is to start in the coming months.
ARK DISABLE IN WATER DRIFT FULL
The measures do not address the full problem of water management at the plant or the bigger issue of decommissioning. The clean-up, including decommissioning the ruined reactors, will take decades and rely on unproven technology. The government intervention represents only a tiny slice of the response to the Fukushima crisis triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which caused reactor meltdowns at the plant. “The world is watching to see if we can carry out the decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, including addressing the contaminated water issues,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told cabinet ministers, who met to approve the plan. Madrid and Istanbul are the rival candidates. The announcement comes just days before the International Olympic Committee decides whether Tokyo - 230 km (140 miles) from the wrecked plant - will host the 2020 Olympic Games and the government is keen to show the crisis is under control.
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