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Japan to dismantle first commercial reactor |
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| JAPAN: October 7, 2001 | ||
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TOKYO - Japan Atomic Power Co will begin dismantling in December Japan's oldest commercial nuclear reactor, located northeast of Tokyo, a company spokesman said last week.
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The 166,000-kilowatt nuclear reactor, commissioned in 1966, will become the first commercial Japanese nuclear power plant to be dismantled. The cost of scrapping the plant and other related measures, which is expected to take until fiscal 2017/2018, is estimated at 93 billion yen ($772 million), the spokesman said. The spokesman said that about 18,100 tonnes of low-level radioactive waste is expected to be produced from the demolition of the plant. The reactor, located in Tokaimura on the Pacific Coast ended operations in 1998. It was the only plant in Japan that used graphite as its moderator and carbon dioxide gas as its coolant. Japan's 51 other commercial nuclear reactors use water as a moderator and coolant. About a third of Japan's electricity needs is covered by nuclear power.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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