ML22123A189
| ML22123A189 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/09/2022 |
| From: | Cool L NRC/OIP/ICAB |
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| Download: ML22123A189 (34) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
34TH REGULATORY INFORMATION CONFERENCE (RIC)
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SPECIAL PLENARY SESSION: WASTE AND WATER: THE
FUTURE OF DECOMMISSIONING EFFORTS AT
FUKUSHIMA-DAIICHI
NUCLEAR POWER STATION
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WEDNESDAY,
MARCH 9, 2022
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The Plenary Session met via Video-
Teleconference, at 9:01 a.m. EST, David Skeen, Deputy
Director, Office of International Programs,
presiding.
PRESENT:
DAVID SKEEN, Deputy Director, Office of
International Programs, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission
GUSTAVO CARUSO, Director and Coordinator, Fukushima
ALPS Treated Water Review, International
Atomic Energy Agency
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 2
HAJIMU YAMANA, President, Nuclear Damage
Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation
Corporation of Japan
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 3
P R O C E E D I N G S
9:01 a.m.
MR. SKEEN: Thank you, everyone, good
morning, and welcome to this special plenary session
entitled Waste and Water, the Future of
Decommissioning Efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Station.
My name is David Skeen and I am the Deputy
Director of the NRC's office of international
programs, and I have the distinct honor of chairing
today's session.
We are very fortunate to have with us
today senior executives from the Nuclear Damage
Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation
Corporation of Japan, or NDF.
And the International Atomic Energy
Agency, or the IAEA, to discuss the ongoing
decommissioning and decontamination activities at the
Fukushima Daiichi site.
As some of you may know, about 10 years
ago I served as the Director of the NRC's Japan
Lessons Learned Division, following the 2011 Great
Tohuku earthquake and tsunami that resulted in the
accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4
station.
I recall that even in the early days
after the accident, we realized that decontamination
activities at the site would be a very long-term
effort on the order of 30 to 40 years.
And dealing with a large volume of
contaminating water that would be generated at the
site over those many years would be one of the most
significant technological challenges for the
Government of Japan.
I'm looking forward today to hearing from
our panelists to get their views on the ongoing
decommissioning efforts including the NDF
unprecedented efforts that are currently underway at
the site, and the lessons being learned that could
have a significant impact on future decommissioning
efforts worldwide.
I am truly honored to introduce our two
distinguished speakers who will share with us their
respective agencies' unique role in the ongoing
Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning activities.
We will hear first this morning from
Professor Hajimu Yamana, the President of the Nuclear
Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 5
Corporation of Japan.
Dr. Yamana served as a professor at Kyoto
University specializing in actinide chemistry and
education for over 20 years, before being asked to
lead the NDF response to the Fukushima Daiichi
accident.
He has served as President of NDF since
2015 and has devoted his efforts to safely
decommissioning the facility ever since.
President Yamana will address the NDF
strategic planning relating to decontamination and
decommissioning at the Fukushima site, including the
technical challenges such as debris retrieval, spent
fuel removal, waste management, and the associated
regulatory considerations.
Our second speaker is my good friend and
colleague Gustavo Caruso, who will discuss the IAEA's
ongoing work with Japan regarding the planned release
of the treated water from the Fukushima site.
Gustavo has more than 40 years of
experience in nuclear radiation safety, regulatory
inspections of nuclear installations, licensing of
nuclear power-plants with the Nuclear Regulatory
Authority of Argentina before he joined the IAEA.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 6
In 2005 he was appointed the Head of the
Regulatory Activity Section within the Department of
Nuclear Safety and Security at the IAEA.
Following the Fukushima accident in 2011,
he was designated at the Special Coordinator for IAEA
action plan on nuclear safety in response to the
accident, and was the primary author of the report
that the IAEA issued.
In 2021 Director Caruso was selected to
manage the IAEA safety review of Japan's planned
discharge into the ocean of the contaminated water
that is currently being stored in 1500 storage tanks
at the Fukushima site.
So, following the presentations by both
President Yamana and Director Caruso, there will be
an opportunity for audience questions.Please submit
any questions you have using the Q&A tab.
Without further ado, I will now turn to
President Yamana to introduce his organization and
their activities related to decommissioning of the
Fukushima site. President Yamana, the virtual floor
is yours.
MR. YAMANA: Thank you, Mr. Skeen, and
hello, everyone. I am President Yamana from Japan,
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and I'm very glad to be with you today in this special
session.
Firstly, I'd like to express my sincere
gratitude to the NRC Staff for preparing for this
meeting and to Chairman Hanson for giving me this
precious opportunity.
Before starting my speech, please allow
me to express my deep concern and sorrow for what is
going on under war. It is as though my concerns at
nuclear facilities there are isolated by military
force from the operators on discretion and regulators
distractions.
So, this is totally against our firm
belief out of our experience from Fukushima Daiichi
accident that the most important lesson to be learned
should be operators proactive responsibility for safe
operation together with a completely independent
guidance from the regulatory authority.
So, at the 11th anniversary of the
nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi, let me express
sincere thanks from Japan to all countries who gave
support to Japan through various types of
international cooperation.
Today I will talk about the current
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 8
status and plans for the decommissioning of the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power-plant as well as the
plans for the release of tritiated water into the
ocean.
Please note that I will refer to
Fukushima Daiichi as 1F for short. Can I have my
slide, the first cover page?
Firstly, I'd like to talk about the
organizational structure for 1F decommissioning.
For the decommissioning of nuclear plants that
require a long period of time, a prerequisite for
success is the establishment of a solid
organizational and management structure.
In the legal framework of Japan's nuclear
power business, Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO,
is ultimately responsible for the decommissioning of
1F.
On the other hand, based on the law on
nuclear disaster response, the Government created the
Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters and TEPCO's
decommissioning has to follow the line of this
administrative guidance, which is managed by METI as
a leading ministry.
NDF is a government-affiliated
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 9
corporation specially created to supervise TEPCO to
fulfil its responsibility of compensation and
decommissioning. It is also responsible for
developing decommissioning strategies managing
decommissioning funds and overseeing TEPCO's project
management.
And nuclear regulatory authority, NRA, is
responsible for ensuring the safety of 1F
decommissioning from a complete independent
standpoint.
With regards to the release of tritiated
water into the ocean, there were several ministries
to address the possible comments of computational
impacts to the society. So, next page, please.
The major risk sources to DRAs are shown
on the lower left. The two major radiological risk
sources are the spent fuel stored in the storage pools
in the reactor building and the fuel debris
solidified inside of the pressure vessel and primary
containment vessel.
These must be retrieved from the damaged
reactor building within a certain period of time and
brought into a safe storage space until the time when
the final end state becomes ready.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 10
One complication is the inflow of
underground water into the reactor building and this
results in the continuous generation of contaminated
water. Similarly, there is a huge amount of low-
level radioactive solid waste that requires strategy
management for the future.
In the upper half of this page, I show
the timeline of the decommissioning defined by the
Government's mid and long-term roadmap. Now, 11
years after the accident, we are at the end of the
second phase of this table.
Until various measures for emergency
response and stabilization were taken to achieve the
safe and stable status today.
In the second phase, we have completed
about half of the spent fuel retrieval and are
prepared to study and start fuel debris for Unit 2 as
the first implementing unit.
We will start the third phase from around
the end of this year to complete recovery of spent
fuel and prepare for the full-scale recovery of fuel
debris within the first decade.
The photo in the lower right shows a
large remote arm that will be used for the inside
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 11
investigation of the reactor vessel and for the
small-scale trial sampling of the fuel debris at Unit
2.
It is going to start from this autumn.
Please go ahead. Now, recently, attention is given
to the issue of disposal of the treated water and I
have to focus on this subject in my talk.
Treated water is purified cooling water
that was contaminated from contact with the damaged
core. Let me introduce the water management system
being used at the 1F site.
Water is continually injected into the
pressure vessel to cool the damaged core and the water
flows out to the turbine building.
In order to reduce contaminants, this
water is treated by the Cs removal system and reverse
osmosis system to feed it back to the reactor.
However, a significant amount of
groundwater continuously flows into the building,
increasing the volume of water in this circulation
loop.
The excess water is taken out and treated
by Advanced Liquid Processing System, ALPS, to remove
almost all radionuclides to satisfy that it meets the
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 12
safety criteria for discharge to the environment.
By operating the ALPS system at its
optimal performance of decontamination, the only
remaining radionuclide in the treated water is
tritium. This is called ALPS treated water.
Due to the continuous in-flow of the
groundwater in the past, the amount of the treated
water stored in thousands of tanks has now reached to
about 1.4 million cubic meters, occupying massive
portions of the site.
It is estimated that the run-out of the
space to build additional tanks within less than two
years.
Through a dedicated study by the
Government, it was concluded that it is appropriate
to release the ALPS-treated water into the ocean as
long as the environmental safety is secured.
This is a standard practice for all other
nuclear facilities in the world, releasing tritium to
rivers or oceans. This conclusion is widely
supported by concerned experts who emphasize the
importance of sustainable long-term project of
decommissioning.
Next slide, please. This slide shows a
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 13
plan for the ocean discharge of ALPS-treated water.
In the upper left, you can see the current storage
status of the ALPS-treated water.
1.3 million cubic meters are stored in
about 1500 tanks because the tritium inventory is
about 780 terra becquerels.
The average concentration is 60,000
becquerels per liter. It is anticipated that about
5000 cubic meters of treated water will be added every
year.
The plan to release ALPS-treated water
into the ocean is based on keeping the amount of
tritium released per year below 22 tera becquerels,
which was the upper limit license condition for pre-
accident power generation operation.
The upper limit of tritium concentration
will be 1500 becquerels per liter because this has
been already approved and used for the release of
tritium-containing groundwater to the ocean.
It was just about one-fortieth of the
legally permitted criteria for tritium discharge. To
ensure this low concentration, the ALPS-treated water
will be diluted with seawater nearly 100 times before
the discharge.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 14
To respond to the public concern, an
undersea tunnel will be built and the water will be
discharged at one km offshore and depth of about ten
meters. I should acknowledge that there has been a
big debate and social confusion about this decision.
However, we believe this decision is
justified and unavoidable because we must keep
focusing on risk reductions such as the removal of
the core debris and moving forward on
decommissioning.
It is natural that there are some key
points to be confirmed for this operation. There,
the confirmation of the sufficient removal of other
radionuclides than tritium, the sufficient dilution
of the treated water, precisely analyze concentration
of tritium, and so on.
To address these concerns, open and
transparent monitoring of all systems and discharge
is required and continuous ocean monitoring will be
essential too.
In order to confirm the correct
implementation, safety regulation by the NRA as well
as supervision of the project by the NDF, disclosure
of accurate information and careful explanation of
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 15
information of importance.
And as will be given by Mr. Caruso later,
the independence supervision and evaluation by IAEA
is indispensable.
Finally, I have to touch on the fisherman
and public are very concerned about the environmental
impacts and the potential of reputational damages.
We fully understand these concerns and
the Japanese Government is now planning to address
these social impacts with various administrative
measures. Go ahead, please.
To conclude my talk, I'd like to remind
you that the decommissioning of 1F has been
progressing steadily and we are making steps for the
mid to long-term work such as the fuel debris
retrieval.
For the ocean release of ALPS-treated
water, scientific safety should be the fundamental
basis of the stakeholder involved discussion and
understanding.
I appreciate your further discussion and
understanding of their approach and we would be happy
to provide the necessary information to you. Thank
you very much.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 16
MR. SKEEN: Thank you, President Yamana,
for providing the RIC audience here such a
comprehensive update on the NDF activities.
I'm certainly also glad to see the NDF
has been able to continue this important mission
despite the additional challenges of COVID-19 over
the last few years.
I know that's also weighing on folks'
mind as well as you do your work.
As a reminder to the audience, please
enter any questions you may have for President Yamana
into the question and answer chat box so that we can
address those following Director Caruso's
presentation.
So, now we will turn to Director Caruso
to discuss the IAEA's work with Japan that is related
to the release of the treated water from the Fukushima
site. Gustavo, the virtual floor is yours.
MR. CARUSO: Thank you very much. Thank
you, Chairman Hanson, to invite the IAEA and myself
to make this presentation in this online format.
This month is 11 months from the
accident, that's why I wanted to inform you the Agency
organized an important conference last year, where
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 17
Dr. Yamana and Chairman Hanson had a prominent role
there.
And then the conference educates the
Fukushima building on the lessons learned for nuclear
safety was a very successful one and we are working
with the proceedings at this moment which will be
really soon for the public consumption.
But to my first slide, please?
Just the presentation we have some
outline, background, the focus on of the IAEA review
and scope and the standards that we will use, the
taskforce that was stated, components of our review
and different aspects regarding the recent progress
and looking ahead.
Next, please. In April 2021, the IAEA
and the Government of Japan make an agreement of this
based on the governmental announcement from Japan
about the basic policy for handling the ALPS waters
at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
And in this agreement, we discussed how
to make the review of the implementation plan
activities all related to discharge of the water that
Dr. Yamana had just explained before at the Fukushima
Daiichi power-plants against international safety
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 18
standards.
And this is basically consistent with and
totally in line with our standard line functions to
provide the application of this international
standards at the request of the parties of the member
state.
I wanted to clarify that it's not an
inspection, we are not replacing any regulatory job,
we are just going to fulfil international work just
to compare and comply, and see the compliance with
all the international standards that approve all the
member states in this particular case of the
discharge.
This review will be focused on the low-
range review of the before the water will be
discharged during the discharge of the water, as some
indicates, and after the complete discharged water to
the sea.
Therefore our main activity was how to
ensure safety and transparency, mainly the key
concept of the review in order to contribute to the
confidence building. Next, please.
Then, the mission scope will focus
basically on the Government of Japan, however, they
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 19
are different players in this case. In one side,
it's METI/TEPCO, basically the responsible
organization to prepare the application and to see
how the technical comply with the safety standards.
The other side is the regulatory body
that we will also be part of our review in assessing
and reviewing the standards and inspecting the
application and issuing the organizations in
compliance with our standards as well.
Therefore, with these two, we complete
the picture and also the focus that basically, as I
said, near term, mid term, and long term, that's why
we have to prepare all our skills concerning this
long range of this particular review.
We will use the standards, of course, as
a benchmark and the conclusions of course will be
based on the compliance or the comments from using
the standards as a reference point. Next please.
Then here you can see a number of
standards, these are the key ones, in particular
starting from the basis of the standard we have G
Part 3. These are the standards for radiation and
safety radiation sources.
And this is the requirement but
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initially, we are considering the safety
fundamentals, safety principles that is the governing
overarching requirements for all activities and
safety standards below that.
And also the number of guides, the number
of guides that are related to the environmental and
source monitoring, the radiation protection of the
environment of the public radiation protection,
radiation protection control of the radiation
charges, and prospective damage to the environment.
This is key.
Next please.
To do this work, the Director General, he
directed the establishment of the taskforce as a
pragmatic tool to implement all the work that we have
to do, including 11 international recognized experts
in different fields in these particular topics
related to ensure that we have the international
expertise needed to do this work.
They were appointed by the DG and in
addition to that, we have a number of staff of the
IAEA that has the background in this topic to join us
as we complete what we call the taskforce on this
project.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 21
Next, please. The taskforce basically
will serve the Secretariat as the leading component
and they will be chaired by the IAEA.
Personally, I am the Chair of the
taskforce and the objective of the Secretariat is
providing planning, coordination, and implementing
all the review admissions.
We will provide the necessary expertise
to use the necessary reports, compiling information,
drafting the text, and of course, being the liaison
with any other necessary senior official in the
Government of Japan and member state or any other
relevant stake-holders.
The international expressed, of course,
they have an advisory role, an important role, to the
Secretariat to perform the function to basically
review the information, highlight the relevant key
aspect, attend the missions and participate with us
in the missions, attend the taskforce expert meetings
and of course, participate in different activities
planned by the IAEA.
Next, please. In summary, this review
will consider three important components.
The first is the safety assessment where
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 22
we include all the technical radiation aspects that
are considered for the plan and supporting these
activities, in particular, considerations such as how
to make the radiological characterization of water,
the safety-related aspect of the engineering of the
implementation of the system to discharge the water,
the occupation of radiation protection processes,
basically the doses to the workers, and the
radiological environmental impact assessment.
The regulatory activities, the other
important components, is the review, what are the
regulatory actions are considered to do, the
processes that the Japanese regulator are planning to
do in this project, with set objectives what are the
most important requirements from the Japanese
regulators in place?
Which regulatory assessment, the
affirming of the inspections and oversight program
plan by the NRA in Japan. And last but not least is
the independent summary analysis, what we normally
call collaboration.
In our project the IAEA will make the
collaboration of all sampling water, in particular
two things, one is the source of water, how to
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 23
characterize independently for the IAEA for our
laboratories, what is the isotopic composition of the
tanks, and how to characterize the environmental
samples that are composed by sediments, by water, by
seaweed, and fish.
These are made in the IAEA by three
laboratories, we have three laboratories, one at the
IAEA we call isotopic hydrology, laboratory with
another one is outside Vienna and this laboratory is
terrestrial monitoring.
And in Monaco, in Monaco we have a
laboratory for an environmental monitoring. The
three laboratories together will make an independent
analysis but not only that, we are going to involve
third-party laboratories from other countries to
again, corroborate our independent mission. Next
please.
The outputs, what are the outputs of our
program? In this particular we have many components
which will be drawn through the years, several years,
and in multiple ways.
For example, they create an important
website with public domain, we are producing reports
in different topics in particular from missions. We
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are giving briefings to the Board, to members states
on particular requests and making presentations, like
for example this one at RIC.
The reports will be issued periodically
will update all of the work that we are doing with
different components of the mentioned work, and prior
to the beginning of the discharge.
We plan to make a summary reports with
our statements about the compliance of the evaluation
of the international standard with all processes and
activities that Japan is doing.
The Secretariat of course will provide a
timely debriefing necessary to get a clear
understanding of what the work is that was done and
what are our conclusions. This is before the water
discharge.
After that we will have another program,
how to continue for a number of decades about this
monitoring aspect and inform the regulatory
stakeholders. Next please.
What we need until now is basically, just
to summarize, the Government of Japan and TEPCO
providing information on the ongoing review, for
example, in November of 2021 the environmental impact
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assessment, in January the implementation plan, the
entire project implementation plan, and February, we
received the self-evaluation of how Japan believes
they are in compliance with what are the ongoing work
in order to achieve the role of compliance with
international standards.
We have several meetings with the
taskforce since last year in September to review
different steps of this process and in February of
2022 we have very important mission that basically
was divided into three parts.
One, we went there with the three
laboratories' representatives to Japan to discuss how
we are going to make the corroboration plan. Second,
we made the first mission to TEPCO METI the in order
to review one of the components, as we mentioned, the
safety assessment including the radiation aspects.
And the last was the preparatory meeting
of the regulatory mission that is going to take place
in March. Next please.
Then we made a first mission, as I said,
to TEPCO.
It's the first in the process, there will
be more than one, but these are the initial missions
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to get the awareness of the situation, visit the
place, discussing the technical people, asking
questions towards a comprehensive understanding of
all the topics included to be part of the compliance
of the standards.
This mission will take several experts
like 15 members from the taskforce and engineers,
outside members, inside members, and we cover, as I
said, a wide range of topics.
Next, please. Then we'll mainly focus
on eight technical areas, we discussed the
overarching departments that needs to be fulfilled.
What are the main elements for the characterization
of the source term, discussing about radionuclides
that intervene in this process in different storage
tanks.
We discussed different safety-related
aspects regarding the process on the reliability of
the process, how the engineering is going to take
place at the site in order to review what are the
different situations including any contingency plans
for if something was wrong or going wrong.
What are the back up situations, what are
the safety systems that will cope if there is
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 27
something wrong? The other topic was the
environmental impact assessment.
We discussed all topics since what is the
impact in the environment. Those limit constraints,
source and environmental monitoring programs because
another thing in addition to our corroboration, we
are going to review how they are making themselves
the monitoring program for the source term and the
environmental standards.
And how Japan is getting a close on
giving information to the interested parties or
stakeholders for all this work, and of course, an
additional last but not least, we discussed the
occupation radiation protection.
It means that the IAEA will also
corroborate the doses to the Staff involved in this
activity. As I said, we are working at this moment
with different elements collected in Japan and we are
going to produce a report in a couple of months to
identify similar topics that we discussed and how
to continue because, as I said, before the water
release an ongoing dialog that we are doing in Japan.
Japan is working different materials and
documents, evaluations that we discussed to be done,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 28
and then as I said, this report will consider all
these things and will be released at the end of April,
optimistically, realistically, probably the first
week of May.
Next please. In the future, where do we
go? As I said this month, another mission we are
going to have is the first regulatory review about
how NRA is making the regulated safety case of the
ALPS-treated water discharge.
And then we have the same case of
TEPCO/METI will also make a report in a couple of
months after the mission, end of May, and then we
have plans for the second part of the year to have
the other missions, the continuation from the second
mission to the TEPCO/METI and the regulatory
authority, including inspection programs and further
developments that appear that we need to discuss
related to the prior work.
2023 is the plan year where the water
will be discharged.
It will be a very dynamic time in 2023,
in particular because we need to issue a final report
of our views before the water view is discharged with
the three volumes of the self-assessment, the
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 29
regulatory review, and the corroboration assessment,
including a summary that is easily understandable
summary for all people in the nuclear program.
And of course, we will continue
implementing the process for independent sampling and
we have to prepare in 2023 our program for during the
process. During the process means that after the
water started to be charged at the sea.
Then in 2024, long-term monitoring will
continue under the current consideration of all
discussed with the relevant stakeholders. This is
what I have to tell you, I hope that it was clear.
Thank you again for giving this
opportunity for giving the presentation, thank you.
MR. SKEEN: Thank you very much, Gustavo,
I really appreciate the comprehensive presentation
that you provided.
I know that at least here at the NRC we
will be following the work of your taskforce as you
go forward and we certainly look forward to
continuing engaging with the IAEA and the NDF on this
topic.
So, we've got about five minutes for
questions and I've got several questions coming in.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 30
I think the biggest ones that we're getting right now
have to do with the stakeholders. So, I think we'll
go to Dr. Yamana first.
Can you talk about some of the approaches
you've had in consulting with the public and the
stakeholders in Japan in any of the challenges you
might have faced with your engagement with the
public?
What were the lessons learned from those
engagements?
You're on mute, Dr. Yamana.
MR. YAMANA: Sorry, yes, thank you.
Actually, there has been significant distrust for
TEPCO and discontent from the accessibility of the
decision-making process in the Government, this is
people's opinion.
So, the public engagement has been
absolutely important and this has been very important
in the case of Fukushima Daiichi.
So, for communication with the
stakeholders, the Japanese Government has
periodically had formal opportunity to discuss about
the progress and plan of the decommissioning,
including the water issue with the leaders of the
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 31
municipalities and some representatives of the
relevant field in the Southern area.
On the other hand, the NRA has had the
frequent meeting to discuss about the safety of the
continuing work with TEPCO in which NRA Commissioners
and some opinion leaders debate the safety issues.
This meeting is open to internet streaming.
So, there have been some other
opportunities to have direct dialog with the public
like the International Forum, which is held by my
organization.
But I have to say, the chance of the
dialog with the public was not so sufficient in the
past. So, I myself think we need to expand this
opportunity to talk directly to the public, I mean
the stakeholders should be expanded more. That is
my view.
MR. SKEEN: Thank you very much for that
answer, I appreciate it.
I know certainly the more open and
transparent you can be in the plan as the process
moves forward, sometimes it's difficult to go through
but it is important to keep the public informed as
the activities proceed.
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But I know, certainly Gustavo and the
IAEA will make all their information public. So,
having them monitoring and providing that to the
public is also very helpful.
Gustavo, real quick, from your
presentation, folks seem to say the review process on
the proposed release, you wrote out a pretty good
plan as to where we are and where we're going to be
in the next couple of years.
But long-term, how do you see the IAEA
monitoring process? Just give us some of those
perspectives on the projects going forward.
MR. CARUSO: Thank you for the question.
I think as I said, we have very different milestones.
Our first milestone is to produce and show to what
extent Japan is fully in line with the standards.
This will be done next year, let's say
before the water will be discharged.
And then everybody has the opportunity to
see our evaluation totally independent evaluation
done, some discussions probably Japan would use this
with their stakeholders for this particular result.
After that, as I said, in 2023 we need to
prepare our own program, how we're going to first the
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transition moment, what I call is the moment that
they all work preparations and imminently opening of
the valves will happen and the Agency will be present
for a time.
And then after that, of course we will
continue to be present as part of our review and
witnessing of all the activities in line with the
standards.
And after that, as I said, 2023, we have
to prepare the steady-state program, how we are going
to monitor and first of all corroborate what is in
the sea, what is in the tanks, in the open manner
with our laboratories, and then how we are going to
take into account the taskforce discussions, what's
going on.
If, of course, our discussion is
basically meant for any particular and small
deviation we are prepared to discuss, first, among us
and then with the Japanese colleagues in order to be
sure we are on the same page.
Therefore, we are fully prepared through
design programs, as you know this house, the IAEA,
has enough experience on this particular project and
we are prepared to design a program to support and to
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 34
demonstrate basically science-based approach,
transparency, and this will contribute altogether to
building confidence that we have.
MR. SKEEN: Thank you, Gustavo, I
appreciate the response on that. Unfortunately,
we've reached the end of our time today and we have
to conclude this special plenary session.
But I want to thank our two distinguished
panelists, President Yamana and Director Caruso, for
taking the time out of their very busy schedules to
participate in this session with us today.
I also greatly appreciate all of the
audience for joining us virtually. I'm sure having
the audience hear these types of conversations is
very helpful and educational for them.
So, if there are no other questions or
thoughts, thank you everyone for participating today
and I thank the RIC audience. This closes out our
session, thank you.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter
went off the record at 9:46 a.m.)
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS