Japan Press Weekly

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2023 August 9 - 15 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

JCP in Shimane urges prefectural gov’t to withdraw its consent to ‘pluthermal’ plan at Shimane NPP

The Japanese Communist Party Shimane Prefectural Assemblymembers’ group on August 9 made representations to the prefectural government to demand a withdrawal of its consent to the Chugoku Electric Power Company’s plan to start “pluthermal” power generation, which uses plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, at the No.2 reactor of the Shimane nuclear power plant while decommissioning the No.1 reactor.

The JCP made this action following the CEPCO’s announcement a week earlier that the utility, in connection with its “plutermal” plan, will conduct a survey for a project to construct an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Kaminoseki Town in Shimane’s neighboring prefecture of Yamaguchi.

In the representation, JCP assemblymembers’ group head Omura Toshinari pointed out that the operation of nuclear power plants continues generating nuclear waste for which no safe disposal method has yet been established. He added that the current pro-nuclear power policy has reached an impasse, and demanded that the prefectural government shift away from nuclear power generation and the nuclear fuel cycle. He also demanded that a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori’s Rokkasho Village be shut down permanently and that the CEPCO’s project in Yamaguchi’s Kaminoseki Town be cancelled.