Decommissioning unit 1 and 2 at Japan’s Mihama -NPP in Fukui prefecture, southwest Japan, will take 30 years and cost around $72m, according to proposals submitted to local authorities by owner and operator Kansai Electric Power Company. According to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (Jaif), work for the three-year period to fiscal year 2018 – the first half of a preparatory period – will include system decontamination, the investigation of radioactivity inside facilities, the removal of unused fuel assemblies, and the dismantling of equipment inside the turbine buildings. Five nuclear reactor units in Japan have been designated by their owners for decommissioning. These include Mihama 1 and 2; Kyushu Electric Power Company’s Genkai 1; Chugoku Electric Power Company’s Shimane 1; and Japan Atomic Power Company’s Tsuruga 1. The decisions to permanently shut down and decommission all five units were made in response to the 40-year limit on reactor operation imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority after the March 2011 accident at Fukushima-Daiichi.
