OSAKA -- Japanese plant engineering company Hitachi Zosen is part of a consortium that hopes to build a large facility in the U.S. for the interim storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
The facility in the state of Texas is expected to have the capacity to store 40,000 tons of radioactive waste.
U.S. subsidiary NAC International is working with France's Areva, one of the leading global providers of services for the nuclear energy industry, and American company Waste Control Specialists, which owns the vast property where the facility will be built. The trio will establish a special-purpose company for the project.
Hitachi Zosen builds huge reaction towers for chemical plants, so it knows how to construct the kind of durable pressurized containers needed for sealing away radioactive waste.
Waste Control Specialists has already submitted an application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct and operate the facility.
Assuming the project wins approval, construction is scheduled to begin in 2021 at a total cost of several tens of billions of yen (10 billion yen equals $99 million). The idea is for a private consortium to operate the storage facility.
Hitachi Zosen hopes to boost similar orders in the U.S., where 100 nuclear reactors are in operation generating large quantities of spent fuel. Teaming with Areva is a way to tap this promising growth market.
(Nikkei)
