JAPAN GOV'T EYES MINAMITORI ISLAND AS CANDIDATE SITE FOR NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL

TOKYO, March 3 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- The Japanese government will approach a Tokyo municipality for consent to conduct a survey to determine the suitability of Minamitori Island, located on the eastern edge of the country's territory in the Pacific, for an underground disposal site for high-level radioactive waste.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa will submit the request in writing to Ogasawara Mayor Masaaki Shibuya later in the day, according to the ministry.

If the survey is realised, it will be the fourth such survey in the country.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organisation, a quasi-governmental body in Tokyo, started the preliminary survey in Suttsu and Kamoenai in Hokkaido in November 2020 and the third one in Genkai, Saga Prefecture, in June 2024.

The central government has struggled to find sites to dispose of nuclear waste. Toyo in Kochi Prefecture applied for a survey but withdrew the application in 2007 due to opposition from residents.

High-level radioactive waste is produced when uranium and plutonium are extracted from spent fuel, which must be stored in bedrock at least 300 metres (m) underground for tens of thousands of years until its radioactivity declines to levels that are not harmful to human health or the environment.

Minamitori Island, about 1,900 kilometres southeast of central Tokyo, has no civilian population, with its only inhabitants being Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force members and government personnel.

Akazawa noted that the entire island is state-owned.

It has recently attracted domestic and overseas attention as a Japanese team successfully retrieved mud samples containing rare earth elements from a depth of about 5,600m in waters off the remote island earlier this year.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO