Nuclear

With Japan committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration is grappling with key questions over which near-term measures to take in order to reach the long-term goal.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has formulated a plan to build a small-scale test and research reactor at the site of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, where decommissioning work is currently underway, according to news sources.

In an unusual move, a nuclear power exhibition facility in a small town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which has been seeing a steady decline in the number of visitors in recent years, will reopen as a medical clinic when a new doctor starts work there in April.

Four of the biggest names in Japan's nuclear industry agreed on Wednesday to explore joint operations as each player struggles with the risk of building or running reactors on its own.

Even after the Fukushima No. 1 crisis in March 2011 forced Japan to rethink its use of nuclear energy, the resource-scarce nation had hoped nuclear power would still serve it well.

Nearly eight years have passed since the severe accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011. Based on the lessons from the accident, new safety standards for nuclear power plants were implemented in July 2013, and 15 nuclear reactors at eight power plants cleared the new standards.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. said Wednesday that it has for the first time made contact with deposits believed to be nuclear fuel debris — a mixture of melted nuclear fuel and parts of the reactor — inside the containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The operator of the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant said Wednesday it has completed its first attempt to use a remote-controlled probe to manipulate melted fuel accumulating at the bottom of one of the crippled reactors.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings will use a survey robot to make direct contact with the radioactive fuel at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this week, the first such attempt since the meltdown eight years ago in March.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has decided to scrap its aging No. 2 reactor at Genkai nuclear plant in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Saga.