The cost of decommissioning a nuclear reactor that was once seen as the crown jewel in Japan’s atomic energy programme has been put at an eye-watering 300 billion yen (HK$20.5 billion). That estimate for shutting down the Monju power plant was drawn up by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in 2012, a year after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but has only now been revealed by the Mainichi newspaper. The fate of Monju – which means wisdom in Japanese – has been up in the air since long before the Fukushima crisis due to a series of accidents at the plant, with many in the industry and the government tacitly accepting that it will never again be put into operation.
South China Morning Post 17th Feb 2016 read more »