KYODO NEWS - Jul 24, 2019 - 21:31 | All, Japan

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will decommission the Fukushima Daini nuclear complex, its president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, told Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori at a meeting Wednesday.

It will be the second nuclear plant that the utility will decommission, besides the nearby Fukushima Daiichi complex that was crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, creating one of the world's worst nuclear crises.

TEPCO's decision to scrap Fukushima Daini, a plan expected to cost around 280 billion yen ($2.6 billion), will be formally approved at the company's board meeting later this month if local municipalities accept it.

Kobayakawa said it will take over 40 years to complete the decommissioning of all four reactors at the plant.

The prefecture has demanded that the utility scrap the reactors at Fukushima Daini, saying their existence would hamper its reconstruction efforts. The plant has been offline since its operation was suspended due to the March 2011 disaster.

If realized, all 10 nuclear reactors in the northeastern prefecture, including the six at the Daiichi complex, will be scrapped.

It will also leave the utility with only the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, and the planned Higashidori plant in the northeastern prefecture of Aomori.

Kobayakawa said at the meeting, also attended by the mayors of the two towns hosting the plant, that TEPCO plans to build a new on-site storage facility for the Fukushima Daini reactors' spent nuclear fuel.

Uchibori welcomed the decision to scrap the reactors but did not respond regarding the storage facility plan, saying he will first consult with the towns hosting the complex.

The spent fuel will be placed in metallic containers and cooled using a dry storage method, according to the operator.

No decision has been made on the final disposal of the spent fuel, raising concern that the radioactive waste may remain on-site for a long time.

The Fukushima Daini plant currently has around 10,000 assemblies of spent fuel cooling in pools.