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information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise

Working conditions to be improved

November 9, 2013

Work environment improvements planned for Fukushima plant

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131109p2a00m0na006000c.html

 

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s headquarters in charge of handling contaminated water and contaminated water storage tanks at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant announced safety measures on Nov. 8 that include improvements to the working environment at the crippled plant to raise worker morale.


The chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Shunichi Tanaka, had sought fundamental improvements at the plant in a meeting with TEPCO President Naomi Hirose after repeated leaks of contaminated water occurred at the facility in October due to human error.


Motivation for the improvements came from the NRA halting safety inspections on the No. 6 and 7 reactors at TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant -- which are necessary if those reactors are to be restarted -- because of insufficient measures at the Fukushima plant to prevent radioactive water leaks. Reactivation of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is a top priority for TEPCO for it to rebuild its finances.


The company plans to seek loans from financial institutions at the end of December. To secure the loans it is required to give an estimate of when the plant will be reactivated, as funds from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant are required to improve its finances. If the safety evaluations of the plant's reactors remain suspended, financial institutions may not be willing to grant TEPCO the loans.


"If we do not quickly come out with some convincing measures (to stop water leaks), the reactivation (of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant) will be pushed further back," said Hirose.


According to the announcement of the new safety measures, the areas people can work in without needing to wear a full-face mask to protect against radiation will be doubled from their current amount to cover two-thirds of the plant's premises by decontaminating the plant. By fiscal 2014 or 2015, TEPCO plans to expand these areas to cover everywhere except around the No. 1 through 4 reactors.


TEPCO will also make a new, eight-story rest area capable of accommodating around 1,200 people, according to the measures, as the current rest area located on the premises is too small. Construction on the new rest area is to start as early as December next year. To improve the food available to workers at the plant, a meal preparation center that can provide 3,000 meals a day is to be completed by the end of fiscal 2014.


Currently, the planning of work at the plant is done at the Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant around 10 kilometers south, as there is no room at the Fukushima No. 1 plant for desk work. The new measures would provide a new building for such work within the Fukushima No. 1 plant grounds and aim for better efficiency. Additionally, 220 more workers are to be added to manage contaminated water and contaminated water storage tanks, with the extra manpower coming from locations such as the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant and thermal power plants.


Decommissioning of the Fukushima No. 1 reactors is expected to take 30 to 40 years, and to accommodate this, a central supervisory room will be made to combine what are currently divided, supervisory functions. Temporary-use generators set up as backup power sources will be replaced with more permanent ones.


To prevent radioactive rain water from flowing out over barriers set up around contaminated water storage tanks, as happened in October, the barriers will be made higher. To reduce the danger of the contaminated water in case it leaks, TEPCO will aim to speed up the start of full-scale operation of the plant's Advanced Liquid Processing System, which can remove 62 types of radioactive material from water, as well as make the system more reliable.

 

TEPCO fleshes out steps to improve Fukushima plant working conditions

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131109p2a00m0na001000c.html

 

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday fleshed out a set of measures to improve the tough working environment at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, hoping to raise the morale of people involved in the plant's decommissioning process.


The measures include plans to build an additional temporary office space to house 1,000 employees in June, a facility near the plant to produce warm meals for workers by the end of March 2015 and an eight-story building as a rest station. TEPCO will also take steps that could lead to increased wages for contract workers.


At a press conference in Tokyo, TEPCO President Naomi Hirose also vowed to ensure the safety of the upcoming process to remove fuel from the spent fuel pool of the severely damaged No. 4 unit. The work is expected to start in mid-November.


"This decommissioning work will continue for 30 to 40 years and it is the company's highest priority to improve labor conditions and to enable workers to maintain their sense of responsibility," Hirose said.


To reinforce its management of the radioactive water buildup at the Fukushima plant, Hirose said TEPCO is on the path to increasing the number of staff in charge of the matter to a total of 320 from the initial 100.


Following a string of radiation leaks and other problems, the Nuclear Regulation Authority recently urged TEPCO to take "drastic" steps to improve the situation, including the working environment that remains poor even though more than two years have passed since the nuclear crisis began in March 2011.


TEPCO is apparently eager to show the NRA that it can properly manage the Fukushima plant at a time when the utility is seeking to restart an idled nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture to turn around its struggling business.


A senior NRA official told reporters earlier that it will decide whether to go ahead with the safety assessment of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant by seeing how the situation at the Fukushima plant improves.


The safety of reactors has to be confirmed by the NRA before they can be restarted.


Meanwhile, sources close to the matter said Friday that TEPCO plans to shift to a holding company system in fiscal 2016 at the earliest to ensure its survival when competition increases under planned drastic electricity sector reform in Japan.


In April this year, TEPCO installed in-house firms respectively in charge of thermal power generation, power grid and retail businesses. The in-house companies are likely to become subsidiaries under the holding company.

TEPCO may create more subsidiaries, including one in charge of decommissioning the Fukushima plant.


The government is pushing for a plan to separate regional utilities' power generation and transmission businesses as part of the power system reform expected to start from 2015.


TEPCO also plans to scrap all of its 10 branch offices and assign around 1,000 of the employees who have been working at the offices for reconstruction activities in Fukushima Prefecture, according to the sources.

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