Year
2019
Abstract
Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF) has a mission among others to technically support the government of Japan and the TEPCO HD so that the decommissioning of the accident-stricken Fukushima Daiichi NPS (units 1, 2 and 3) is safely and steadily implemented. For this mission, NDF annually issues a “Technical Strategic Plan for Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.”. The decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi NPS is an operation to continuously and promptly reduce the risks associated with the radioactive materials generated in the accidents, and the Technical Strategic Plan provides the technical guidelines for its fulfillment. As major risk sources associated to the accidents are listed 1) <u>highly contaminated water</u> and <u>fuel assemblies remaining in the spent fuel pool</u> of which risk level is relatively high with urgent treatment required, 2) <u>fuel debris</u> of which risk is not imminent but may increase in long term if left without treatment, and 3) <u>solid radioactive waste</u> of which risk may stay stable but which needs a proper treatment in years. The Technical Strategic Plan illustrates specific technical actions to be taken with milestones to reduce each risk source. The dry-up operations of the contaminated water targeted in 2020 for units 1, 2 and 3 will enable us to isolate the contaminated areas, fuel assemblies removal from the spent fuel pools to start in 2019 will greatly reduce the global risk. Fuel debris retrieval, unprecedented operations in the world, will start in 2021 after a careful preparatory work. In 10 (ten) years, solid radioactive waste will be stored in more consolidated areas. Lots of unknowns and uncertainties, however, are intrinsically embedded in the decommissioning operations of the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPS, and hence, with the progression of the decommissioning, the technical strategies must be updated. The results are reflected in the Technical Strategic Plan each year.