JAPAN
The dismantling of the country's first nuclear power plant has got underway. Japan Atomic Power Co is carrying out the closure work of the plant located in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture. The 166,000 kilowatts-output capacity plant began functioning in 1966 and it will be shut down fully by March 2018.
Although the loss-making plant was scheduled to close in 2006, it stopped operating in March 1998 itself. The authorities are busy closing valves on pipes that connect the reactor to the heat exchange unit. It will take 10 years for the radioactive substances within the reactor to decrease and then the actual removal of the reactor will take place.
Around 177,300 tonnes of waste will be generated while dismantling the plant. Of this, 18,200 tonnes of low-radioactive waste is to be buried.
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