Iran's foreign minister says nuclear enrichment is not negotiable

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 | Sun Sep 29, 2013 2:45pm EDT

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday the country's right to peaceful nuclear enrichment was not negotiable in talks with the United States but it does not need to enrich uranium to military-grade levels.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran was willing to open its nuclear facilities to international inspections but the United States must end economic sanctions as part of any deal on Iran's nuclear program.

Speaking in the midst of an intensified effort to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, Zarif said he could see a "real chance" for agreement with the United States.

"Negotiations are on the table to discuss various aspects of Iran's enrichment program. Our right to enrich is non-negotiable," Zarif told ABC's "This Week" program.

Iran consistently has defended its right to enrich uranium as part of a civilian nuclear energy and medicine program, but the United States and its allies have sought an end to higher-grade uranium enrichment that could be a step away from the production of weapons-grade material.

"We do not need military-grade uranium. That's a certainty and we will not move in that direction," Zarif said. "Having an Iran that does not have nuclear weapons, is not just your goal, it's first and foremost our goal."

U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone on Friday in the highest-level contact between the two countries in three decades. It was the culmination of a recent, dramatic shift in tone between Iran and the United States, which cut diplomatic relations a year after the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Obama has said for years he was willing to have direct contact with Iran while also stressing that all options - including military strikes - were on the table to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

But Zarif said Iran was willing to have its facilities visited by international inspectors to prove it was not seeking a nuclear bomb.

"If the United States is ready to recognize Iran's rights, to respect Iran's rights and move from that perspective, then we have a real chance," Zarif said.

"We are willing to engage in negotiations. The United States also needs to do things very rapidly. One is to dismantle its illegal sanctions against Iran," he said.

Zarif said there has been 34 years of "mutual distrust" between Iran and the United States but both sides should begin removing some of that distrust through talks.

(Reporting by John Whitesides; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Japan to spend up to $500 million to fix Fukushima nuclear crisis

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Chairman Shunichi Tanaka (L) is seen in front of a screen showing the current situation of the contaminated water leakage in Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo September 2, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato

By William Mallard

TOKYO | Mon Sep 2, 2013 9:39pm EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is set to pledge up to $500 million to contain leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, with the government stepping up its intervention in the world's worst atomic disaster in a quarter of a century.

Trade and Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said late on Monday the government would fund "tens of billions" of yen to address the water crisis after the embattled operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said it had found another radiation hot spot at the facility.

The government is set to announce on Tuesday a package of measures to deal with the crisis at the Fukushima plant, which was wrecked by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The public funds will amount to as much as 50 billion yen ($503.25 million), Japanese media reported on Tuesday.

This would include 32 billion yen to create a massive underground wall by freezing a perimeter of earth around the damaged reactors to contain groundwater flows, and 15 billion yen to fix a system meant to drastically reduce radiation levels in the contaminated water.

The government would tap about 20 billion yen in budgetary reserves for this fiscal year, media reported, citing unidentified government sources.

The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which faces a decision on Saturday by the International Olympic Committee on Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 summer Olympics, is rushing to address criticism that Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has bungled the response to the nuclear disaster.

"Tokyo Electric has been playing a game of whack-a-mole with problems at the site," Motegi said in a televised interview late on Monday, referring to a popular amusement park game.

He said the Fukushima problems should not have any impact on the Olympic bid, in which Tokyo is competing with Madrid and Istanbul.

After a recent spike in overseas alarm at the problems at Fukushima, the Japanese government is "trying to cool the international media off prior to the Olympics decision", Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear energy analyst based in Paris who frequently visits Japan, said by email.

"NO CAUSE FOR WORRY"

Measurable radiation from water leaking is confined to the harbor around the plant, Motegi said, and there should be no impact on other countries because the radiation will be so diluted by the ocean that it is not an environmental threat.

"There is no cause for athletes or visitors to Tokyo to worry," the minister said.

Last month, China said it was "shocked" to hear that contaminated water was still leaking from storage tanks and urged Japan to give timely and accurate information.

Tepco is storing enough contaminated water to fill more than 130 Olympic-sized swimming pools, mostly in hastily built tanks that officials have said may spring further leaks.

The planned measures are daunting. Freezing earth to block water flows is a technology commonly used in digging subway tunnels, but it is untested on the Fukushima scale and the planned duration of years or decades. The decontamination technology has repeatedly suffered from glitches.

The planned government intervention still represents only a tiny slice of the response to the Fukushima crisis, which is expected to take decades and rely on unproven technology.

The water-containment measures do not address the full problem of water management at the crippled plant, do not remove uncertainty about the fate of Tepco, Japan's largest power company, and do not address the much bigger problem of decommissioning the plant. The most sensitive job of removing spent fuel rods is to start in coming months.

The government's planned announcement, at a Tuesday meeting of a disaster task force, will come just hours after Tepco said patrolling workers found a new area of high radiation near storage tanks. Those tanks are holding water that became contaminated after it was washed over melted fuel rods.

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant north of Tokyo was devastated by a tsunami on March 11, 2011, that resulted in fuel-rod meltdowns at three reactors, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Tepco has been pumping water into the reactors to keep the damaged cores and stored fuel from overheating. That emergency step has created a secondary crisis of how to manage the contaminated water that is pumped back out.

Workers had found no signs of fresh radiation leaks but the company said a radiation reading on the ground near the newly found hot spot would expose a worker in just one hour to the safety limit Japan has set for exposure over five years.

No precise reading was given since workers were using instruments that only recorded radiation up to 100 millisieverts an hour. Tepco said the reading exceeded that level.

Tepco said last week radiation near a different tank spiked 18 times higher than the initial reading, a level that could kill an unprotected person in four hours.

As much as 300 metric tons of highly radioactive water was found to have leaked from another tank last month. ($1 = 99.3550 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Sumito Ito and Mari Saito; Additional reporting by Aaron Sheldrick; Writing by Bill Mallard; Editing by Paul Tait)

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New radiation spike found near Fukushima nuclear plant water tanks

TOKYO | Mon Sep 2, 2013 8:54am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, said on Monday that a patrol of workers had found a new area of high radiation near tanks used to store contaminated water.

The latest revelation in a statement by Tokyo Electric late on Monday comes a day before Japan's government is set to announce new steps to address deep-seated problems in controlling the spread of radiated water at Fukushima and criticism that the utility has bungled the response to the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Tokyo Electric said it had found a radiation reading above 100 millisieverts per hour on the ground near a water storage tank. The latest hot spot is in a different area than a storage tank that was found to have leaked 300 metric tons of radioactive water in August.

Tokyo Electric said in a statement that there was no sign of a water leak around the newly discovered area of high radiation. The utility could not give a precise reading for the level of radiation since workers were using instruments that only recorded radiation up to 100 millisieverts.

Japanese nuclear workers are limited to a cumulative exposure of 100 millisieverts over five years.

(Reporting By Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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Japan to spend almost $500 million on water crisis at Fukushima nuclear plant

1 of 4. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) speaks during a joint-meeting by Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters and Nuclear Power Disaster Management Council at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo September 3, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Shizuo Kambayashi/Pool

By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Mari Saito

TOKYO | Tue Sep 3, 2013 6:35am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan pledged nearly $500 million to contain leaks and decontaminate radioactive water from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, stepping up government efforts to cope with the legacy of the worst atomic disaster in a quarter of a century.

The announcement comes just days before the International Olympic Committee decides whether Tokyo - 230 km (140 miles) from the wrecked plant - will host the 2020 Olympic Games and the government is keen to show the crisis is under control. Madrid and Istanbul are the rival candidates.

"The world is watching to see if we can carry out the decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, including addressing the contaminated water issues," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told cabinet ministers, who met to approve the plan.

The government intervention represents only a tiny slice of the response to the Fukushima crisis triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which caused reactor meltdowns at the plant. The clean-up, including decommissioning the ruined reactors, will take decades and rely on unproven technology.

The measures do not address the full problem of water management at the plant or the bigger issue of decommissioning. The sensitive job of removing spent fuel rods is to start in the coming months. The ultimate fate of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), also remains unclear, as does the question of who will eventually foot the bill - Japanese taxpayers, or the embattled Tepco.

"This is a matter of public safety, so the country has to take the lead on this issue and respond as quickly as possible. Figuring out who to bill for the costs can come later," Economics Minister Akira Amari told a news conference.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a separate news conference that the government would spend a total of 47 billion yen ($473.05 million), including 21 billion yen in emergency reserve funds from this year's budget.

Of that, 32 billion yen will fund the building of a massive underground wall of frozen earth around the damaged reactors to contain groundwater flows, and 15 billion yen to improve a water treatment system meant to drastically reduce radiation levels in the contaminated water.

TEPCO CRITICISM

Tepco, Japan's biggest utility, has come under a fresh flood of criticism following a stream of bad news including its admission, after repeated denials, that contaminated water was flowing into the Pacific Ocean. That was followed by leaks from above-ground tanks used to store radiated water.

The problems have revived notions, debated but rejected in the months after the March 2011 disaster, of liquidating Tepco or at least splitting off the Fukushima operation from its other businesses and putting it under direct government control.

"Is anyone at Tepco taking responsibility for these mistakes? I haven't heard of anyone stepping down or being fired," said Taro Kono, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party deputy secretary general who is critical of nuclear utilities. "Tepco needs to go down and the government needs to take over," he said, acknowledging his was a minority view in the ruling party.

Industry minister Toshimitsu Motegi and ruling party officials have said liquidating Tepco was not being considered as an option.

Critics said the government was mainly trying to cool down international media coverage ahead of the Olympics decision.

"At a moment when international public opinion is worrying about the long-term consequences of repeated leaks at the site, Tokyo seems to obeying the short-term logic of waiting until the Olympics decision is over," Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear energy analyst based in Paris who frequently visits Japan, said by email. A more sustainable option, he added, would be to seek global support to confront Fukushima's unprecedented challenges.

Motegi denied the Olympic bid was the main motivating factor. "The government felt that we want to be fully involved and put together fundamental measures regardless of the decision on where they will hold the Games," he said.

OFF-LIMITS

Measurable radiation from water leaking from the facility is confined to the harbour around the plant, Motegi noted, and is not an environmental threat to other countries because the radiation will be diluted by the sea.

The peak release of radiation in the sea around Fukushima came about a month after the earthquake and tsunami. Ocean currents have since dispersed the plume and sent the diluted radiation in a slow drift towards the West Coast of the United States, studies have shown. The amount of radiation expected to reach Canadian and U.S. coastal waters in the years ahead is projected to be well within safety limits for drinking water as it will have been greatly diluted.

The closest towns to the stricken plant remain deserted and off-limits to the public. But some former residents have started to return to their homes, some of which are less than 20 kms away, as decontamination work progresses.

China said last month it was "shocked" to hear that contaminated water was still leaking from storage tanks and urged Japan to give timely and accurate information. [ID:nL4N0GM0DG] Tepco is storing enough contaminated water to fill more than 130 Olympic-sized swimming pools, mostly in hastily built tanks that officials have said may spring further leaks.

The planned measures are daunting. Freezing earth to block water flows is a technology commonly used in digging subway tunnels, but is untested on the Fukushima scale and the planned duration of years or decades. The decontamination technology has repeatedly suffered from glitches.

The Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), developed by Utah-based EnergySolutions and Toshiba Corp, can remove all radioactive particles from water except tritium, considered the least harmful to humans. But the system has been stalled for months due to mishaps.

Tepco said earlier that patrolling workers had found a new area of high radiation near water storage tanks.

($1 = 99.3550 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Sumio Ito, Aaron Sheldrick and Stanley White; Writing by Billy Mallard and Linda Sieg; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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