OKUMA, Japan, (PNA/Kyodo) –Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday urged Tokyo Electric Power Co. to scrap two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that avoided meltdowns during the 2011 accident, saying that the utility should focus more on the plant’s cleanup efforts.
Of the plant’s six reactors, the utility is moving ahead to decommission the Nos. 1 to 4 units that suffered meltdowns or hydrogen explosions in the early days of the crisis. But it has not made clear what it will do with the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors that achieved a stable condition called a cold shutdown.
According to Abe who visited the plant on Thursday, TEPCO President Naomi Hirose said he will decide on the fate of the two reactors by the end of this year, while also vowing to drastically lower by March 2015 the level of radioactivity in contaminated water accumulating at the complex.