OREANDA-NEWS. The workshop is held in Japan for the first time and is focused on Russian expertise in the use and development of atomic technologies and back-end solutions (the final stage of the nuclear fuel cycle). The workshop will be held on November 26 and 27 in Tokyo, Japan.

Representatives of Rosatom's leading companies providing comprehensive services related to spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste treatment, decommissioning of nuclear facilities and further land rehabilitation, shared their experience in ensuring nuclear and radiation safety at Russian nuclear industry facilities and during the implementation of similar projects abroad.

At the workshop Japan was represented by over 100 heads and representatives of the country's leading nuclear organizations, including the Electricity and Gas Industry Department of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry); the nuclear department of Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. (TEPCO); Japan's Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation (NDF).

In his welcome speech, Kirill Komarov, First Deputy Director General for Development and International Business of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, identified the key areas of cooperation between Russia and Japan in nuclear power: "As global leaders in the sphere of peaceful use of nuclear energy, Russia and Japan have cooperated for a long time. We fervently support Japan's decision to continue the development of nuclear power in the country despite the Fukushima disaster. We are ready to be an active partner not only in our traditional projects, such as delivery of uranium products to Japan, but also to develop cooperation in the sphere of back-end solutions, safety, spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste treatment, deactivation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants and dealing with the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster as soon as possible.”

Kirill Komarov said that this workshop is the first event of this type organized by Rosatom for its Japanese counterparts. He also expressed the hope that this will become a good tradition marking a new stage and offering new prospects for developing cooperation between the countries.

The importance of the workshop’s agenda was pointed out by Junichi Eguchi, Director for Nuclear Accident Response Office of the Electricity and Gas Industry Department of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, who presented the most important tasks in back-end in the modern Japan: "Nowadays our country faces a lot of issues related to elimination of consequences of the Fukusima accident. Removal of the spent nuclear fuel remains the biggest problem. We have already done a lot to ensure safety of the population in the adjacent territories, however, we still have a great job to do and we are sure that, step by step, we will manage to deal with the current situation. The accident at the NPP Fukushima-1 makes us take unprecedented difficult measures and I think that Japanese technologies are not sufficient to solve this problem: we need technical cooperation with various countries in the nuclear power. Our country, which has suffered such a terrible accident, has a great responsibility for elimination of the consequences and restoration of confidence to the nuclear power in the world. We will take all active measures for this purpose and we sincerely hope that Russian experts will help us to complete this task”.

The reports on competitive advantages of Rosatom on the international market in the context of current trends in nuclear power development, Russian state policy in back-end as well as innovative technologies for safe handling of different types of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste were presented to the participants of the workshop. The Japanese were highly interested by Rosatom experience in decommissioning of radiation-hazardous facilities and rehabilitation of radiation-contaminated territories while Japan needs to solve the problem of nuclear legacy.

Oleg Kryukov, Director for Public Policy on Radioactive Waste, Spent Nuclear Fuel and Nuclear Decommissioning of the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, talked on the results achieved in back-end: “We have achieved good results in terms of development and implementation of innovative technologies to handle and decommission radiation-hazardous facilities. Such innovations in handling spent nuclear fuel as transition from wet storage to a dry one, lack of dumping of radioactive waste and minimization of their disposal, recycling of nuclear materials in reactors on thermal and fast neutrons, allowed us to obtain new competencies and now we are confident to share them with foreign partners”.