Fukushima nuclear disaster and water release

Cost to scrap Fukushima nuclear plant massively underestimated, Japanese officials admit

A revised figure expected by the end of the year could be more than double the current price tag

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Members of the media in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at Tepco's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma in February, 2016. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:15pm, 25 Oct 2016Updated: 11:13pm, 25 Oct 2016

The cost of cleaning up Tokyo Electric Power’s wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may rise to several billion dollars a year, from less than US$800 million now, Japan’s industry ministry said on Tuesday.

The increased cost projections appeared in ministry documents prepared for a panel tasked with devising a viable financial plan for the utility company known as Tepco, which is struggling to cope with rising costs at its Fukushima plant nearly six years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Japan’s Minister of the Economy, Trade and Industry, Hiroshige Seko, told reporters after the panel meeting, its second, that the government will provide a firmer estimate for annual decommissioning costs for the nuclear plant by the end of the year,

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko addresses the second meeting of an expert panel on reforms of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings in Tokyo on October 25, 2016. Photo: Kyodo

Surging decommissioning costs are being addressed by the panel but it is also looking into options including a break up of Tepco, which is under state control after an earthquake and tsunami sparked meltdowns at the Fukushima reactors in March 2011.

“A combination among nuclear operators is one possibility,” Yojiro Hatakeyama, a director at the industry ministry overseeing the electricity and gas industries, told reporters.

He did not elaborate on the government’s estimate for annual decommissioning costs after repeated questioning from reporters.