Costs for safety measures by 11 power companies to restart idle reactors at their nuclear power plants nationwide in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster have ballooned to 6.5 trillion yen ($43.98 billion), according to an Asahi Shimbun survey.
Expenses tend to rise significantly during the final security screening process for bringing reactors back online.
Total expenditures are expected to continue spiking dramatically from here on out, given that eight reactors are currently undergoing the particularly difficult safety checks process.
The cost advantage afforded by nuclear power generation over other forms of power generation was undermined following the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
That prompted a novel financing system to be instituted to shift the growing burden of safety countermeasures onto the public on a broad scale.
The Asahi Shimbun has been conducting a questionnaire survey since 2013, asking 11 power companies across Japan how much they invest in precautionary measures.
The utilities are obliged to implement safeguards at their facilities against earthquakes, tsunami and other emergencies under revised regulatory standards.
In the safety spending research conducted in July this year, Hokkaido Electric Power Co., in particular, logged a year-on-year increase of 400 billion yen. This pushed the total budget for the 11 corporations to at least 6.556 trillion yen–6.5 times the 2013 estimate.
Hokkaido Electric, with an eye toward resuming operations of the No. 3 reactor at its Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido in 2027, completed the main phase of the reactor’s security review in July of this year.
About 627 billion yen is projected to be required to install security equipment such as high barriers to block tsunami waves.
The total budget for the No. 1 through No. 3 Tomari reactors was initially estimated at 60 billion yen as of 2013, and the lately unveiled figure means that the expenditures for the No. 3 reactor alone have soared more than tenfold from the earliest prediction.
Anti-disaster spending tends to increase even more sharply, when detailed designs of relevant facilities are finalized toward the end of safety screening.
Tohoku Electric Power Co., which reactivated the No. 2 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear station in Miyagi Prefecture in October last year, saw its outlays surge upward of 28 times to 710 billion yen from 25 billion yen for 2013.
In the meantime, the expenditures have remained virtually unchanged for atomic power generation establishments still stuck in the earlier stages of regulatory reviews.
Chubu Electric Power Co., whose Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture is currently undergoing screening, has earmarked 400 billion yen in total.
Hokuriku Electric Power Co., operator of the Shika nuclear plant in Ishikawa Prefecture, has consistently estimated its security budget at less than 200 billion yen for more than 10 years.
Safety costs for those plants are certain to grow as their safety checks advance.
At the Hamaoka plant, the largest possible tsunami was found to exceed the anti-wave levee during last year’s screening. A decision was thus made to raise the wall’s height, inevitably ratcheting up spending in the near future.
On top of that, Chubu Electric, Hokuriku Electric and Chugoku Electric Power Co. have yet to include in their security budgets the funds to newly incorporate mandatory specialized facilities to guard against terrorist attacks.
The ever-swelling safety costs are already adding to the public burden.
The central government expanded the scope of the long-term decarbonized capacity auction in fiscal 2024, aiming to cover safety enhancement expenses for existing nuclear power stations as well.
The bidding framework was initiated in fiscal 2023 to motivate the operators of electricity generation facilities to actively introduce decarbonized energy sources with no carbon dioxide emissions.
Winning bidders are guaranteed incomes over the next 20 years, in principle, to fund construction, personnel and other standing charges to build or replace decarbonized power generation facilities.
The auction system is financed by contributions from electricity retailers, which are ultimately passed on to consumers through their utility bills.
In the fiscal 2024 bidding, triple reactors emerged victorious: the No. 3 reactor at the Tomari plant; the No. 6 reactor of TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power station in Niigata Prefecture; and Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.
Together, they accounted for more than half of the decarbonized power generation capacity allocated for the auction.
(This article was written by Fumi Yada and Yusuke Ogawa.)
AloJapan.com