TEPCO Not Eyeing Rate Hike for Funds to Fight Tainted WaterOct 07 - Jiji Press English News ServiceTokyo Electric Power Co. President Naomi Hirose on Monday showed the firm's intention of not relying on an electricity rate hike in securing some one trillion yen over the next 10 years for measures to deal with radioactive water leaks at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. "We will try hard to reduce costs in order to avoid a hike in our electricity rates," Hirose said at a meeting of the House of Councillors Committee on Economy and Industry, stressing that the one trillion yen should be secured through reductions in expenses. Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told the same committee meeting that the NRA will carefully consider how to proceed with safety checks for the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, while watching the situation over the water leak problem at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. TEPCO late last month submitted to the NRA an application for the safety screening for the two reactors under Japan's new nuclear plant regulatory standards introduced in July, with the aim of bringing them back online as early as possible. Including the two Kashiwazaki-Kariwa units, Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors have all been suspended. Toshihide Kasutani, senior official of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, said that billions of yen will be necessary a year for the operation of a frozen-soil groundwater shield TEPCO and the government are planning to install at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which was knocked out by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.END http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=30233502& |