TEPCO Exec: Daini Plant Will Be Decommissioned
A Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) executive on June 14 said the utility is prepared to decommission the four idle units at its Fukushima Daini nuclear plant in Japan. The comments come as TEPCO continues to struggle with large compensation payments and cleanup costs associated with the March 2011 accident at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa’s remarks today are the first public statements from the company regarding the Daini plant, known as Fukushima No. 2, which escaped damage in 2011 but which is among dozens of Japanese nuclear plants that have remained offline for more than seven years in the wake of the Daiichi disaster. Kobayakawa at a news conference in Fukushima said local opposition to restarting the Daini units is partly behind his company’s decision to permanently close the plant.
The Daini plant is about 7 miles south of Daiichi. Some of its reactors lost cooling functions during the 2011 incident but none of the four units experienced a critical situation.…