IAEA to help decontaminate Japan nuke plant area

TOKYO – A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Japan this week to help with the massive cleanup of areas contaminated by a radiation-leaking nuclear power plant, officials said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said the 12-member team will help plan and conduct the decontamination during its nine-day visit starting Friday. It will also visit the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, meet with Japanese nuclear officials and compile a report, he said.

A massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged cooling systems at the plant, causing three reactor cores to melt and releasing large amounts of radiation. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes.

"We hope that we can move ahead with decontamination more promptly and effectively by bringing together wisdom from around the world," Fujimura said.

The team is the second major IAEA mission to Japan since the nuclear crisis began. An IAEA accident investigation team visited the tsunami-hit plant in late May and early June.

The upcoming mission will also inspect the plant and monitor decontamination experiments in farmland and other areas near the plant.

Japan lifted some evacuation advisories around the plant last week, in a move largely aimed at reassuring tens of thousands of evacuees that it is safe to return home. But the area must still be decontaminated, especially schools, playgrounds and other areas where children gather.

A 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone remains in place around the plant. But the government lifted the advisories in five municipalities just outside the ring, saying the plant had been restored to a relatively stable condition, with radiation levels reaching safety standards.

Towns around the plant have begun massive efforts to decontaminate buildings and restore public services so residents can return. Tens of thousands remain in voluntary exile, and local officials say they don't expect residents to rush back because of radiation fears.

Experts say it could take decades for some of the areas nearest the plant to be safe for habitation after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., is struggling to keep the plant under control. It said last week it recently made significant progress in controlling reactor temperatures, key to achieving shutdowns.

TEPCO faces billions of dollars in compensation claims from people and businesses affected by the nuclear crisis.

A government panel said in a report Monday that TEPCO could face a capital deficit of up to 8.6 trillion yen ($112 billion) in a worst-case scenario if it is unable to restart halted nuclear reactors or raise utility fees. The panel said the utility is likely to face about 4.5 trillion yen ($60 billion) in compensation claims and will need 1.2 trillion yen ($15.8 billion) to decommission crippled reactors.

The panel recommended that TEPCO save about 2.5 trillion yen over the next 10 years by eliminating 7,400 employees or 14 percent of its work force, selling off affiliates and taking other steps.

The panel's recommendation will be incorporated into a new restructuring plan for TEPCO as it seeks public funds.

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Nuke plant has 38-hour margin for meltdown

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Saturday released an estimate saying that if the water injections cooling its stricken Fukushima power plant are halted again, the fuel rods could start melting within 38 hours, unleashing another wave of cancerous radioactive fallout.

If the plant is hit by another quake and tsunami as powerful as the March 11 disasters, resuming water injections into reactors 1, 2 and 3 will take three hours at most, the beleaguered utility said.

The cores melted down after the plant's electricity and backup cooling pumps were knocked out by the quake and tsunami.

The estimate said the temperature of the fuel — which is believed to have solidified into a solid mass at the bottom of the pressure vessels — will rise about 50 degrees each hour until it hits its melting point of 2,200 degrees in about 38 hours.

The reactors will then start emitting massive amounts of radioactive fallout, raising levels around the premises to over 10 millisieverts — the threshold for evacuation.

Tepco, however, did not assess the likelihood of newly melted fuel leaking from the pressure vessel — which holds the core — to the containment vessel — the next layer of protection before the buildings, which are damaged.

If any component of the current makeshift water-pumping system is lost, Tepco said it can resume injections in about 30 minutes by activating emergency pumps that have been installed at an elevated position nearby. In the event of multiple functions being lost, the utility projected it will require about three hours to resume water injections.

Japan is attempting to tweak its nuclear evacuation protocol by adding a new, smaller type of danger zone, disaster minister Goshi Hosono said Saturday.

The establishment of a "precautionary action zone" during a nuclear incident would require all residents inside it to immediately leave. The PAZ would be smaller than the government's so-called emergency planning zones.

Under current disaster preparedness guidelines, the radius of the EPZ is between 8 and 10 km. This is being reviewed in light of the Fukushima crisis, which eventually forced the government to set up a no-go zone with a 20-km radius around the plant, and another advisory zone 20 to 30 km away weeks later.

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Japan Lifts Evacuation Advisories Near Nuclear Plant - New York Times

The easing was a bid by the government to bring the country a step closer to normalcy after the March 11 quake and tsunami, which destroyed wide areas of Japan’s Pacific coast and set off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. But with lingering fears over radiation levels — as well as slow progress in decontaminating towns and cities hit by radioactive plumes — a return to these areas is likely to be slow.

A 12-mile exclusion zone will remain in place around the nuclear power plant, Fukushima Daiichi, which the government is working to bring under control. The worst contaminated areas close to the plant are likely to remain uninhabitable for decades, government officials have acknowledged.

Still, the government decided Friday to lift evacuation advisories for five lesser-hit towns and cities just outside that radius. Radiation levels in those towns and cities were stable enough to warrant lifting the advisories, which affected about 59,000 people, officials said. About 30,000 of those people had already returned to the area as radiation fears eased.

But questions remain about whether radiation levels are low enough for all residents to return. On Friday morning, for example, the entrance to Minamisoma city’s main hospital measured 0.51 microsieverts per hour in radiation, according to numbers released daily by the city. A simple calculation would bring annual exposure at the level to almost 4,500 microsieverts, or 4.5 millisieverts a year, far above the annual limit of 1 millisievert for civilians that is recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

At an elementary school in the town of Naraha, also declared safe for residents to return, the measurement came to 0.77 microsieverts per hour, or 6.75 millisieverts a year at that level.

While experts say these levels are still low — the limit for radiation workers in the United States is 50 millisieverts per year, for example — little is known about the health effects of extended exposure to low-level radiation. Moreover, children and pregnant women are known to be especially sensitive to radiation. A sievert measures the effect of radiation on the human body.

Defending its decision, the government cited progress in bringing the Fukushima plant to a relatively stable condition. In one milestone on Thursday, the government said that temperatures in the plant’s three most damaged reactors had fallen below 100 degrees Celsius, an important step toward what experts call a stable “cold shutdown” of the facility.

Despite Friday’s easing, many shops, schools, hospitals and train lines in the affected area remain closed — either damaged in the tsunami or simply unable to open because of the lack of staff and supplies — hindering any quick return to normalcy.

“There are many challenges we must overcome so residents can safely return home,” said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, promising to speed up a cleanup effort that is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars. “The government must unite and lead the way in decontamination and recovery efforts, so we can clear away any doubts evacuees may have about returning,” he said.

The central government’s slowness in aiding areas affected by the disaster has irked some residents, however. Katsunobu Sakurai, mayor of one of the cities cleared for rehabilitation, said that tireless efforts by city officials were behind any progress made in preparing for residents to return. Since early summer, the city, Minamisoma, has teamed up with researchers from Tokyo University to decontaminate kindergartens and elementary schools, digging up contaminated soil in school yards and scrubbing surfaces with brushes.

Many residents also worry that “hot spots” of high radiation still exist across the city, posing health risks. “We’re the ones who took the lead,” Mr. Sakurai told the public broadcaster, NHK. “Now we’d like more assistance from the country.”

There is also the question of where to dispose of the huge amounts of nuclear waste from the decontamination work. Lacking proper disposal or treatment facilities, cities and towns in the area are simply piling up radioactive soil and debris in fields and parking lots and even in corners of school playgrounds.

Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of the nuclear disaster, said that the government would come up with new laws and measures to deal with radioactive waste by next month.

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Deadly typhoon leaves Japan; nuclear plant intact

The second major typhoon in a month made its way out of Japan on Thursday after triggering landslides and floods that left at least 16 people dead or missing but sparing a crippled nuclear plant from major damage. There had been concerns that Typhoon Roke could pose more problems for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was sent into meltdown by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but officials said the plant weathered the storm without major incident. Hiroki Kawamata, spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said several cameras set up to monitor the plant were damaged, but there had been no further leaks of radioactive water or material into the environment. Police and local media reported 16 people dead or missing because of the storm, most swept away by rivers swollen with rains in the southern and central regions. One person died in a landslide in northern Iwate prefecture and two people were swept away in Sendai in the northeast.

The typhoon made landfall Wednesday afternoon near the city of Hamamatsu, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Tokyo, and then cut a path to the northeast and through the capital before bringing new misery to the tsunami zone. It dumped up to 17 inches (42 centimeters) of rain in some areas, triggering landslides and flooding.

By midafternoon Thursday, the system had weakened to a tropical storm and had moved out to sea past Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, which was not hit as hard as the main island of Honshu the day before.

On Wednesday, hundreds of tsunami survivors in government shelters in the Miyagi state town of Onagawa were forced to evacuate for fear of flooding. The storm set off landslides in parts of Miyagi that already were hit by the March disasters. The local government requested the help of defense troops, and dozens of schools canceled classes.

Strong winds snapped power lines in many areas, and officials said more than 200,000 households in central Japan were without electricity.

Overnight in Tokyo, where many rush hour trains were suspended for hours, thousands of commuters got stuck at stations across the sprawling city and stood in long lines for buses and cabs.

Fire department officials reported three people injured in Tokyo, but other than the inconvenience of transportation gridlock and winds that made it difficult to walk around the city, the storm passed through without incident.

Heavy rains prompted floods and caused road damage earlier in dozens of locations in Nagoya and several other cities, the Aichi prefectural government said. More than 200 domestic flights were canceled.

A typhoon that slammed Japan earlier this month left about 90 people dead or missing.

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Typhoon Headed for Stricken Japanese Nuclear Plant - New York Times

TOKYO — A powerful typhoon struck Japan’s main island on Wednesday, stranding thousands of commuters in Tokyo and poured heavy rain on the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the nation’s tsunami-ravaged northeast.

Typhoon-powered waves exploded against a breakwater in Kiho in central Japan on Wednesday.

Evacuation advisories went out to more than one million people across the main island of Honshu as torrential downpours caused flash floods in low-lying areas. As of Wednesday evening, six people had been found dead and seven others were missing, according to Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK.

The storm, called Typhoon Roke, directly hit greater Tokyo, briefly shutting down Japan’s commercial and political center. Strong winds and rains brought most subways and commuter trains to at least a temporary halt, stranding tens of thousands at stations. Bullet train and airline service was canceled.

Even so, most of Tokyo continued to have electric power even as the eye of the storm passed through the city on Wednesday evening, a testament to Japan’s generally robust basic infrastructure. According to Tokyo Electric Power, about 20,000 homes lost electricity in Tokyo, a city of almost 13 million residents.

Roke was the second powerful typhoon to strike Japan in the last month. Typhoon Talas, which made landfall in western Japan on Sept. 2, left 106 people dead or missing, the worst toll in decades.

Roke’s path was expected to take it over the Fukushima plant, which was crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The storm’s approach raised concerns that heavy rains could increase the risk of a leak of contaminated water from the crippled reactor buildings into the nearby Pacific Ocean. But Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric, the plant’s operator, said before the storm hit that the plant could weather it without further damage or risk of a leak. Company spokesmen could not be reached on Thursday morning.

The storm also threatened to flood coastal areas damaged by the tsunami and earthquake, which lowered the level of the ground by as much as two or three feet in some areas, and to wash radioactivity from the evacuated area around the plant into the sea.

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Deadly typhoon leaves Japan; nuclear plant intact (AP)

TOKYO – The second major typhoon in a month made its way out of Japan on Thursday after triggering landslides and floods that left at least 16 people dead or missing but sparing a crippled nuclear plant from major damage.

There had been concerns that Typhoon Roke could pose more problems for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was sent into meltdown by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but officials said the plant weathered the storm without major incident.

Hiroki Kawamata, spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said several cameras set up to monitor the plant were damaged, but there had been no further leaks of radioactive water or material into the environment.

"We are seeing no problems so far," he said.

Police and local media reported 16 people dead or missing because of the storm, most swept away by rivers swollen with rains in the southern and central regions. One person died in a landslide in northern Iwate prefecture and two people were swept away in Sendai in the northeast.

The typhoon made landfall Wednesday afternoon near the city of Hamamatsu, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Tokyo, and then cut a path to the northeast and through the capital before bringing new misery to the tsunami zone. It dumped up to 17 inches (42 centimeters) of rain in some areas, triggering landslides and flooding.

By midafternoon Thursday, the system had weakened to a tropical storm and had moved out to sea past Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, which was not hit as hard as the main island of Honshu the day before.

On Wednesday, hundreds of tsunami survivors in government shelters in the Miyagi state town of Onagawa were forced to evacuate for fear of flooding. The storm set off landslides in parts of Miyagi that already were hit by the March disasters. The local government requested the help of defense troops, and dozens of schools canceled classes.

Strong winds snapped power lines in many areas, and officials said more than 200,000 households in central Japan were without electricity.

Overnight in Tokyo, where many rush hour trains were suspended for hours, thousands of commuters got stuck at stations across the sprawling city and stood in long lines for buses and cabs.

Fire department officials reported three people injured in Tokyo, but other than the inconvenience of transportation gridlock and winds that made it difficult to walk around the city, the storm passed through without incident.

Heavy rains prompted floods and caused road damage earlier in dozens of locations in Nagoya and several other cities, the Aichi prefectural government said. More than 200 domestic flights were canceled.

A typhoon that slammed Japan earlier this month left about 90 people dead or missing.

___

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.

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Typhoon kills 6 in Japan, Fukushima nuclear plant not affected (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – A strong typhoon has left 6 people dead and 6 missing after pounding Japan with heavy rain and strong winds, public broadcaster NHK said, but it did not have a major impact on the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

Typhoon Roke prompted the city of Nagoya in central Japan to urge more than 1 million people to evacuate on Tuesday and it cut through Tokyo on Wednesday, halting commuter trains in and around the capital, affecting millions of passengers.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, said some monitoring equipment had suffered glitches but it did not appear as if the typhoon had caused any radioactive water to overflow into the ocean, adding that final checks were still underway.

The site holds huge amounts of contaminated water used to cool reactors after cooling systems were knocked out by the March earthquake and tsunami.

Typhoon Roke, which has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, was off Japan's northern island of Hokkaido as of 8:00 a.m. (7 p.m. EDT), moving northeast at a speed of 70 km (44 miles) per hour.

It was the second big storm to hit Japan this month after Typhoon Talas hit western Japan and left about 100 people dead or missing. Around two to four typhoons make landfall each year in Japan.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

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Japan plans floating wind power plant to help rebuild Fukushima

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Japan plans to build floating wind power turbines off the Fukushima coast to help reconstruct the region devastated by this year's earthquake and tsunami.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will spend as much as 20 billion yen ($260 million) on a pilot project of six 2-megawatt wind turbines, Masanori Sato, an official in charge of promoting clean energy, said by phone. The feasibility study will run through March 2016 before a possible larger wind farm.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., IHI Corp. and Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding Co. are among companies the ministry expects to take part, Sato said.

“Floating wind power generation is still in the developing stage, so it is good to get Japanese companies involved,” he said today. “Offshore wind power is going to be important.”

Japan plans to build as many as 80 floating wind turbines off Fukushima by 2020, the Sankei newspaper said yesterday. Sato said details haven't been decided. The project cost is part of a supplementary budget that requires approval from parliament.

The March quake and tsunami left about 20,000 people dead or missing and led to a nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, the worst since Chernobyl.

--Editors: Tony Barrett, Alex Devine

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Areas near Japan nuclear plant may be off limits for decades - Reuters

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)'s handout shows a worker in protective gear measuring radiation levels at the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.1 and No.2 reactors, where radiation exceeding 10 sieverts (10,000 millisieverts) per hour was found, in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan August 1, 2011, released by TEPCO August 2, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Tokyo Electric Power Co/Handout

TOKYO | Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:55am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Areas surrounding Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant could remain uninhabitable for decades due to high radiation, the government warned on Saturday as it struggles to clean up after the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Japan faces the daunting task of decontaminating large areas of land around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, which is still leaking low levels of radiation nearly six months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown.

In a meeting with local officials on Saturday, the government estimated it could take more than 20 years before residents could safely return to areas with current radiation readings of 200 millisieverts per year, and a decade for areas at 100 millisieverts per year.

The estimates, which merely confirm what many experts have been saying for months, are based on the natural decline of radiation over time and do not account for the impact of decontamination steps such as removing affected soil.

An vast area is still uninhabitable around the Chernobyl plant 25 years after that disaster.

The Japanese government unveiled guidelines this week with the aim of halving radiation in problem areas in two years, but for spots with very high readings it could take much longer to reach safe levels.

"I can't deny the possibility that it could be a long time before people can return to and live in regions with high radiation levels," outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan was quoted by domestic media as telling Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato.

Japan has banned people from entering within 20 km (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant, located 240 km northeast of Tokyo. Around 80,000 people have been evacuated since the March 11 quake and tsunami and many are living in shelters or temporary homes.

The government's announcement follows the release of data this week showing radiation readings in 35 spots in the evacuation zone above the 20 millisieverts per year level deemed safe by the government. The highest reading was 508 millisieverts in the town of Okuma, about 3 km from the nuclear plant.

Kan, who resigned on Friday as leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan amid intense criticism of his handling of the nuclear crisis, also told Sato that the government planned to build a temporary storage facility in Fukushima for radioactive waste.

The accident at the Fukushima plant is likely to have released about 15 percent of the radiation released at Chernobyl in 1986, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has estimated.

But that is still more than seven times the amount of radiation produced by Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979, and experts have estimated Japan's decontamination efforts could cost as much as 10 trillion yen ($130 billion).

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori and Nathan Layne; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Children Near Japan Nuclear Plant Suffered Internal Radiation Exposure - Global Security Newswire

Radiation turned up inside nearly half of more than 1,000 young people tested in the vicinity of Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi atomic energy facility, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Thursday (see GSN, Aug. 18).

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power has battled to prevent radioactive material from escaping the six-reactor facility following a March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing in Japan. Forty-five percent of the tested individuals, who ranged from infants younger than 12 months old to subjects up to 15 years in age, tested positive for bodily radiation absorption in the aftermath of the disaster.

The thyroids in the majority of those affected had only received radiation in fairly small quantities, government representatives said on Thursday (Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 19).

"The possibility of these children developing thyroid cancer is extremely low" if the findings are reliable, Yoshio Hosoi, a specialist with Hiroshima University's Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal.

Still, the study took place too late to assess the potential absorption of contaminants that break down rapidly, such as iodine 132 and tellurium, he said (Yuka Hayashi, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19).

Meanwhile, an official inquiry determined that Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency did not consider alerting foreign governments to plans for discharging low-level radioactive water from the plant into the Pacific Ocean, Kyodo News reported on Thursday. Japan's Foreign Ministry received notice of the effort from an official working with a Tokyo Electric Power crisis response panel (Kyodo News I/Mainichi Daily News, Aug. 18).

In a bid to lure former inhabitants back to the Fukushima prefecture city of Minamisoma, local leaders in the last week hired workers to rinse away potential contaminants in public areas, the Associated Press reported. More than one-third out of more than 30,000 people who have fled the area vacated properties still considered by the government to be safe for habitation.

City government members, who referred to August as "Decontamination Month," suggested failure to prove the area's safety could prevent the return of former residents. The city previously had a population of 70,000.

"We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do," local official Yoshiaki Yokota said. "It's an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere" (Eric Talmadge, Associated Press/Google News, Aug. 19).

Elsewhere, 52 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium turned up in rice cultivated in the Ibaraki prefecture city of Hokota, prefecture officials said on Friday. The government allows nearly 10 times that concentration of contaminants, Kyodo reported (Kyodo News II/Mainichi Daily News, Aug. 18).

Tokyo loosened restrictions on beef shipments from Miyagi prefecture on Friday, but it maintained a prohibition on deliveries from Fukushima prefecture over concerns of radiation-tainted meat, Reuters reported (Ishiguro/Kubota, Reuters, Aug. 19).

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Solar plant cleans Kawasaki image

KAWASAKI — Few people may realize there is a giant solar power plant in the heart of the Tokyo metropolis, where available open land is scarce.

But in Kawasaki, Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s 11-hectare Ukishima plant, with its 37,926 solar panels, is proving the exception.

The rent-free plant sits atop a landfill adjacent to Tokyo's Haneda airport and the Tama River estuary, thus the site is not near any sun-blocking high-rises.

"People from about 20 municipal governments came over here to see our plant in the past month," said Iwao Shibayama, a senior official in charge of renewable energy in the Kawasaki Municipal Government.

The Ukishima plant, sitting over Kawasaki's incinerated refuse, started operations Aug. 10 in a joint project of the city and Tepco, which will also run the nearby 23-hectare solar power plant on man-made Ogishima Island.

The two plants combined generate 20,000 kw and form one of the largest sources of solar power nationwide.

As providers of renewable energy, huge solar plants are generating keen interest amid the crisis at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and political calls to lessen the nation's dependence on atomic energy, which before the March 11 disasters accounted for some 30 percent of Japan's electricity.

The nation's 10 power utilities also see construction of mega solar plants as part of their long-term goal. They hope to build them at 30 sites, including Ukishima, and generate a combined 140,000 kw by fiscal 2020.

The Ukishima plant is lucky in many ways.

"There are a number of conditions regarding how this plant is used, but we've taken advantage of the drawbacks," Shibayama said, adding the site is ideal for solar power.

Restrictions on high-rise construction around Haneda airport limited Kawasaki's growth options, but the site turned out to become a shadow-free environment.

Kawasaki also can't build structures on the landfill for 20 years until it finishes purifying the incinerated refuse that makes up the soil. That's why the city agreed three years ago to let Tepco build and operate the Ukishima plant for free. The city meanwhile receives fixed-asset taxes from Tepco, Shibayama said.

A prime goal of hosting the solar plant is to improve the city's smokestack image, he said.

"Kawasaki was once infamous for industrial pollution, and some people still have that image," he continued. "With this solar power project, we have an invisible but enormous attribute."

The location is also convenient for Tepco. The utility doesn't need to lay down a new power grid to send electricity generated at Ukishima, as there is already one set up for factories on other parts of the island.

But experts are split on whether enormous solar power plants will take root in a big way.

"Mega solar power generation is not yet very efficient," said Shinichiro Takiguchi, executive senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute.

If plant locations are remote and inexpensive, they may be far from existing high-voltage electric transmission lines. Building new lines would be an additional cost for utilities, he said.

Solar panels and related components also are highly expensive, adding to operating costs, he added.

Experts estimate that a home solar power system would cost ¥40 per kwh, against ¥15 to ¥20 per kwh in the case of wind power, biomass, large-scale hydrogen-generated electricity or geothermal heat.

Takiguchi said he wants to see how solar power prices are set using the feed-in tariff bill that is expected to clear the Diet next week.

"The government has to choose whether it sets lower prices to support industries (that consume electricity) or higher prices to develop renewable energy businesses," he said.

Huge solar power plants are also catching the attention of other industries.

Trading house Mitsui & Co. plans to set up a fund with Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. to build more than 10 big plants nationwide, each capable of generating 1,000 to 2,000 kw.

Masayoshi Son, president of the Softbank Corp. telecommunications group, plans to set up more than 10 huge solar generators across the nation in cooperation with local governments.

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