"Utilities balk at safer storage of spent nuclear fuel to avoid 'wasted investment'"
January 4, 2015 As reported by the Asahi Shimbun, very few Japanese nuclear power plants have on-site dry cask storage for irradiated nuclear fuel. A relatively large amount of INF has already been transported to a storage pool at the targeted Rokkasho reprocessing facility in northern Japan, although its operational opening is nearly two decades behind schedule.
Or, as at Fukushima Daiichi, high-level radioactive (HLRW) waste was moved from individual reactor units into a common pool.
That's why, when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe began on 3/11/11, there was a relatively small amount of HLRW in the Units 1 to 4 storage pools. But even what was there, risked a large-scale radioactivity release that would have dwarfed what has occurred so far, in four years, due to the three melt downs and damaged or destroyed containment structures.
In fact, fear that the Unit 4 pool was devoid of cooling water led to Japanese Self Defense Forces conducting desperate helicopter drops of water from above, in attempt to refill the pool. The fear also played a large part in the U.S. decision to urge American citizens to evacuate 50 miles away from Fukushima Daiichi.
Because pools lack containment, a sudden drain down, or slower motion boil down, of the cooling water supply, and a subsequent INF fire in the pool, could be cataclysmic. Robert Alvarez of IPS estimated that the Unit 4 pool alone at Fukushima Daiichi contained an order of magnitude more hazardous radioactive cesium than was released by the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.
There are voices, such as Professor Katsuta quoted in this article, advocating on-site dry cask storage in Japan, to address storage pool risks, and as an alternative to dirty, dangerous, and expensive reprocessing. Beyond Nuclear has worked with Dr. Katsuta in both Tokyo and Washington, D.C.
In the U.S., hundreds of environmental groups, representing all 50 states, have called for Hardened On-Site Storage, to address both pool and dry cask storage risks.