TOKYO (AP) — An attempt to use an extendable robot to remove a fragment of melted fuel from a wrecked reactor at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was suspended Thursday due to a technical issue.

The collection of a tiny sample of the debris inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel would start the fuel debris removal phase, the most challenging part of the decades-long decommissioning of the plant where three reactors were destroyed in the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

The work was stopped when workers noticed that five 1.5-meter (5-foot) pipes used to maneuver the robot were placed in the wrong order and could not be corrected within the time limit for their radiation exposure, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said.

The pipes were to be used to push the robot inside and pull it back out when it finished. Once inside the vessel, the robot is operated remotely from a safer location.

The robot can extend up to about 22 meters (72 feet) to reach its target area to collect a fragment from the surface of the melted fuel mound using a device equipped with tongs that hang from the tip of the robot.

The mission to obtain the fragment and return with it is to last two weeks. TEPCO said a new start date is undecided.

“It seems to me a basic mistake,” TEPCO spokesperson Kenichi Takahara said of the pipe setup problem. He said officials are investigating and the retrieval mission will resume only after they find the cause and have preventive measures “so a problem like this should never be repeated.”

TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa said the priority was safety rather than rushing the process.
The goal of the operation was to bring back less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) of an estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive molten fuel. The small sample will provide key data to develop future decommissioning methods and necessary technology and robots, experts say.

Better understanding of the melted fuel debris is key to decommissioning the three wrecked reactors and the entire plant.

The government and TEPCO are sticking to a 30 to 40-year cleanup target set soon after the meltdown, despite criticism it is unrealistic. No specific plans for the full removal of the melted fuel debris or its storage have been decided.

ATLANTA (AP) — Utility regulators on Tuesday approved a plan for Georgia Power Co. to expand a power plant southwest of Atlanta.

The Georgia Public Service Commission voted 5-0 for the unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build three new fossil-fuel burning units at Plant Yates, near Newnan.

The company has declined to say how much it will spend on the plants, which will burn either natural gas or diesel fuel to generate electricity, but commission staff members have said similar recent plants in other states have cost $800 million or more.

The commission greenlighted building the plants in April, when it approved a special plan to add generating capacity because the utility said demand was increasing more rapidly than previous projections, driven in part by a boom in computer data centers locating in Georgia. The company won permission to build the units itself, without seeking outside bids for electrical generation, because its projections show it needs more electricity by the end 2026.

“Simply put, we need to build these units and we need to build them now,” Georgia Power lawyer Steve Hewitson told commissioners Thursday during a committee meeting.

Normally, commissioners approve long-term generating and rate plans for Georgia Power once every three years, but this approval came mid-cycle. Because the regular generating and rate plans will be up for consideration next year, customers will see no change in bills because of Plant Yates until 2026.

Georgia Power customers have seen their bills rise sharply in recent years because of higher natural gas costs, the cost of construction projects, including two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, and other factors. A typical Georgia Power residential customer now pays more than $173 a month, including taxes.

Environmentalists and customer advocates questioned letting Georgia Power build new fossil fuel plants without going through a competitive process. Using those sources would mean Georgia Power emits more climate-altering carbon dioxide than using solar generation, other renewable sources and conservation.

They also argue that it leaves customers more exposed to the risk of rising natural gas costs, which have been a big ingredient in recent bill increases. The units would mostly run on natural gas but would switch to diesel when electrical demand is at peak and more natural gas can’t be purchased or delivered by pipeline.

Curt Thompson, a lawyer representing the Sierra Club and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, argued Thursday that Georgia Power should bear some of the risks of rising natural gas costs. In Georgia, the company has been allowed to pass through the entire costs of fuel for its plants, including the combustion turbines it wants to build at Yates.

“The utility industry in general and Georgia Power, in particular, have become increasingly reliant on gas,” Thompson said. “The Yates CTs would only deepen that gas addiction.”

Opponents had again asked the commission to wait until it could examine bids to provide generation, even though commissioners had approved the Yates plan in April.

“Those resources may well be cheaper, cleaner, and a better fit for Georgia Power customers,” Thompson said.

Georgia Power agreed it wouldn’t charge for cost overruns for the turbines unless they are caused by factors outside the company’s “reasonable control.” It’s supposed to submit reports on construction progress every six months.

The fire, described as small by Georgia Power Co. spokesperson John Kraft, broke out about noon and could have threatened the electrical supply to the heating and cooling system for the control room of one of the complex’s two older nuclear reactors, Vogtle Unit 2.

The fire was put out by plant employees, Georgia Power officials said, and the alert ended just after 2:30 p.m. The cause of the fire hasn’t yet been determined, Kraft said.

Dave Gasperson, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesperson, said the fire was contained and did not affect any of the plant’s operating systems, and a backup power system remained available for the heating and cooling system. Gasperson said the commission’s onsite inspector monitored the situation and the commission, a federal agency which oversees nuclear power plants, is determining whether additional follow-up inspections are needed.

Officials said the fire caused no injuries and didn’t threaten the safety or health of employees or members of the public. All four of the nuclear reactors onsite continued to produce electricity at full power, Kraft said.

An alert is the second-least serious category of emergency out of four categories designated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an agency that oversees nuclear power plants. That category could reduce a plant’s level of safety but isn’t supposed to affect the public. The plant returned to normal operations after terminating the alert.

Georgia Power said workers are coordinating recovery with federal, state and local officials. Georgia Power owns the plant along with partners Oglethorpe Power Corp., Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton city utilities. It supplies electricity to almost all Georgians, as well as some utilities in Florida and Alabama.

The two older nuclear reactors were completed in 1987 and 1989. If they lose primary electricity from the outside grid, as well as backup electricity from a diesel generator, the reactors can overheat and melt down. A diesel generator was never needed Tuesday, Kraft said.

Vogtle’s two newer nuclear reactors are designed to avoid a meltdown from a power loss. Those reactors were completed this year and are the first new reactors built from scratch in the United States in decades. They cost the owners $31 billion, finishing seven years late and $17 billion over budget. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid Vogtle owners to walk away from construction, and the total nears $35 billion.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a victory for President Joe Biden’s administration, a federal appeals court on Friday ruled that a new federal regulation aimed at limiting planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants can remain in force as legal challenges continue.

Industry groups and some Republican-led states had asked the court to block the Environmental Protection Agency rule on an emergency basis, saying it was unattainable and threatened reliability of the nation’s power grid.

The EPA rule, announced in April, would force many coal-fired power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions or shut down within eight years. The rules are a key part of the Democratic president’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the industry request to block the rule, saying the groups had not shown they are likely to succeed on the merits. Nor did the case invoke a major question under a previous Supreme Court ruling, since the EPA claimed only the power to “set emissions limits … that would reduce pollution by causing the regulated source to operate more cleanly,” the appeals court ruled.

The unanimous ruling also rejected the claim of immediate harm, saying compliance deadlines do not take effect until 2030 or 2032.

The ruling was issued by Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard and Neomi Rao. Millett and Pillard were appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, while Rao was named to the court by President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Environmental groups hailed the ruling, saying the court recognized the EPA’s legal responsibility to control harmful pollution, including from greenhouse gas emissions. The power sector is the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.

“Americans across the nation are suffering from the intense heat waves, extreme storms and flooding and increased wildfires caused by climate pollution,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the court brief in the case. The EDF and other groups “will continue to strongly defend EPA’s cost-effective and achievable carbon pollution standards for power plants,” she said.

Meredith Hankins, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA rule “set reasonable standards for utilities and states to cut their carbon pollution.” The searing heat wave hitting much of the nation is a sign of how much the rules are needed, she said.

“The idea that power producers need immediate relief from modest standards that start to kick in eight years from now was obviously absurd,” Hankins added. West Virginia and other states that challenged the rule “have plenty of time to begin their planning process” to comply with the rule, she said.

The National Mining Association, which joined the legal challenges, said it would seek an emergency stay from the Supreme Court.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher. The nation’s power supply is already being pushed to the limit, and this rule flies in the face of what the nation’s utilities, grid operators and grid reliability experts tell us is needed to maintain grid reliability,” said Rich Nolan, the group’s president and CEO.

Nolan and other industry leaders said the rule would force the premature closure of power plants that are crucial to maintaining grid reliability even as demand for electricity surges.

Timothy Carroll, a spokesman for the EPA, said the agency was pleased that the court allowed the power plant rule to go into effect while litigation continues.

“EPA’s final standards will significantly reduce emissions of harmful carbon pollution from existing coal-fired power plants, which continue to be the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector,” Carroll said.

The EPA projects that the rule will yield up to $370 billion in climate and health net benefits and avoid nearly 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047, equivalent to preventing annual emissions of 328 million gasoline-powered cars.

The power plant rule marks the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. The rule also would force future electric plants fueled by coal or natural gas to control up to 90% of their carbon pollution.

Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is generated.

Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.

The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning.

The work begun Monday is aimed at having the site ready so TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront for developing sodium-cooled reactors.

Gates told the audience at the groundbreaking that they were “standing on what will soon be the bedrock of America’s energy future.”

“This is a big step toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy,” Gates said. “And it’s important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed.”

Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.

It’s time to move to advanced nuclear technology that uses the latest computer modeling and physics for a simpler plant design that’s cheaper, even safer and more efficient, said Chris Levesque, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

TerraPower’s Natrium reactor demonstration project is a sodium-cooled fast reactor design with a molten salt energy storage system.

“The industry’s character hasn’t been to innovate. It’s kind of been to repeat past performance, you know, not to move forward with new technology. And that was good for reliability,” Levesque said in an interview. “But the electricity demands we’re seeing in the coming decades, and also to correct the cost issues with today’s nuclear and nuclear energy, we at TerraPower and our founders really felt it’s time to innovate.”

A Georgia utility just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.

The TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy. Levesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future ones would cost significantly less.

Most advanced nuclear reactors under development in the U.S. rely on a type of fuel — known as high-assay low-enriched uranium — that’s enriched to a higher percentage of the isotope uranium-235 than the fuel used by conventional reactors. TerraPower delayed its launch date in Wyoming by two years to 2030 because Russia is the only commercial supplier of the fuel, and it’s working with other companies to develop alternate supplies. The U.S. Energy Department is working on developing it domestically.

Edwin Lyman co-authored an article in Science on Thursday that raises concerns that this fuel could be used for nuclear weapons. Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the risk posed by HALEU today is small because there isn’t that much of it around the world. But that will change if advanced reactor projects, which require much larger quantities, move forward, he added. Lyman said he wants to raise awareness of the danger in the hope that the international community will strengthen security around the fuel.

NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell said the agency is confident its current requirements will maintain both security and public safety of any reactors that are built and their fuel.

Gates co-founded TerraPower in 2008 as a way for the private sector to propel advanced nuclear energy forward to provide safe, abundant, carbon-free energy.

The company’s 345-megawatt reactor could generate up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough for up to 400,000 homes. TerraPower said its first few reactors will focus on supplying electricity. But it envisions future reactors could be built near industrial plants to supply high heat.

Nearly all industrial processes requiring high heat currently get it from burning fossil fuels. Heat from advanced reactors could be used to produce hydrogen, petrochemicals, ammonia and fertilizer, said John Kotek at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

It’s significant that Gates, a technological innovator and climate champion, is betting on nuclear power to help address the climate crisis, added Kotek, the industry group’s senior vice president for policy.

“I think this has helped open people’s eyes to the role that nuclear power does play today and can play in the future in addressing carbon emissions,” he said. “There’s tremendous momentum building for new nuclear in the U.S. and the potential use of a far wider range of nuclear energy technology than we’ve seen in decades.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation’s largest public utility on May 9 pledged to be more transparent after it took months to disclose that a general budget vote by its board last year also gave the CEO the final decision over several proposed natural gas power plants.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board announced the transparency changes during its quarterly meeting in Nashville. The decision followed an August meeting in which the federal utility’s board cast the budget vote that quietly gave President and CEO Jeff Lyash the final say over the projects, including the replacement of the aging coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant with a natural gas plant.

The public didn’t find out about those provisions until documents with specific details were released several months later, some via public records request, said Amanda Garcia, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The decision stood in contrast to a more publicized vote in May 2023 when the board, with a new majority selected by President Joe Biden, took back the final decision-making authority on the Kingston plant. Lyash had been granted the authority for Kingston and the natural gas switch at Cumberland Fossil Plant, both in Tennessee, when the board had a majority picked by former President Donald Trump.

“One of the changes the chair asked me if I would do, which I can, is to take the resolutions, precisely what is being voted by the board, and make those resolutions publicly available, get them on the website rapidly after the meeting,” Lyash told The Associated Press.

Board member Michelle Moore, who was absent but had a statement read on her behalf, said some decisions are better delegated to the CEO because they span years and multiple board cycles, but others require board decisions because of “exceptional, regional and even national significance.” Additionally, Lyash said the board maintains oversight authority when the CEO is the decision maker.

TVA’s plans to open more natural gas plants have drawn the ire of advocates who want a more aggressive move away from fossil fuels and into solar and other renewables. They note that even with six of nine board members appointed by Biden, TVA is off track to meet the Biden administration’s goal of eliminating carbon pollution from power plants by 2035 to try to limit the effects of climate change.

Several of its proposals for new natural gas plants have received criticism from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including a warning that its environmental review of the Kingston project doesn’t comply with federal law.

Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Trey Bussey said the transparency changes should have been in place “before TVA decided to spend billions of dollars on new gas plants and pipelines — not after,” adding that the board can still halt the buildout of gas plants. In April, the law center said it recently found out that the board had given decision-making power back to the CEO.

Although TVA has not embraced renewables, the utility still says a majority of its energy is carbon-free because 42% comes from nuclear and another 9% is from hydropower. Purchased wind and solar make up another 4% of its energy portfolio. The utility currently produces 1 megawatt of its own solar and has 20 megawatts of battery storage. The Kingston project includes another 3-4 megawatts of solar and 100 megawatts of battery storage. TVA estimates that the new gas plant will produce 1.68 million tons (1.52 million metric tons) of greenhouse gases a year, noting that it is a steep decline from Kingston’s current emissions.

TVA says its power mix was at 55% last fiscal year, with a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. The utility has said it intends to build 10,000 megawatts of solar by 2035. Its solar goals have hit some snags, including supply chain issues, interest rates and land costs, according to Lyash.

As the region grows in population and TVA looks to add power plants, the utility says it also has a goal of reducing consumption by 30% over the next decade through energy efficiency and demand response programs.

TVA provides power to 10 million people across seven Southern states.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on May 1 imposed new sanctions on hundreds of companies and people tied to Russia’s weapons development program, more than a dozen Chinese entities accused of helping Moscow find workarounds to earlier penalties, and individuals linked to the death of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The actions by the departments of Treasury and State target Russia’s military-industrial base, chemical weapons programs and people and companies in third countries that help Russia acquire weapons components as its invasion of Ukraine has entered its third year

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the action “will further disrupt and degrade Russia’s war efforts by going after its military industrial base and the evasion networks that help supply it.”

The Senate, meanwhile, gave final approval to legislation barring imports of Russian uranium, boosting U.S. efforts to disrupt Russia’s war in Ukraine. Democratic President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

About 12% of the uranium used to produce electricity at U.S. nuclear power plants is imported from Russia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council said Wednesday that Biden shares lawmakers’ concerns about U.S. reliance on Russia for low-enriched uranium to support its domestic nuclear fleet.

Included in the administration’s announcement are importers of cotton cellulose and nitrocellulose, which are used to produce gunpowder, rocket propellants and other explosives. The penalties also target Russian government entities and people tied to Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs, companies related to Russia’s natural gas construction projects and three workers at the penal colony where Navalny died.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has railed against earlier rounds of U.S. and Western penalties, claiming they are “illegitimate sanctions” on his country.

A group of 16 targets in China and Hong Kong, most of which are related to Russian procurement workarounds, are named by the Biden administration.

Yellen traveled to Guangzhou and Beijing last month to warn Chinese officials that they “must not provide material support for Russia’s war and that they will face significant consequences if they do.”

China has said it is not providing Russia with arms or military assistance, although Beijing has maintained robust economic connections with Moscow, alongside India and other countries, as the West imposes sanctions.

Companies in China, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Slovakia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were accused of helping Russia acquire technology and equipment from abroad. The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.

Biden last week said he would immediately rush badly needed weaponry to Ukraine as he signed into law a $95 billion war aid measure that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hot spots.

The upcoming uranium ban is also expected to impact Russian revenues by at least $1 billion. The U.S. banned Russian oil imports after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022 but did not against uranium, despite frequent calls to do so by U.S. lawmakers in both parties.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the import ban “a tremendous victory” and said it “will help defund Russia’s war machine, revive American uranium production and jumpstart investments in America’s nuclear fuel supply chain.”

“Wyoming has the uranium to replace Russian imports, and we’re ready to use it,” Barrasso added.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who heads that Senate committee, said it was “unconscionable” for the U.S. to help make it possible for Putin to “finance his unlawful war against Ukraine” through U.S. reliance on Russian uranium.

Besides the import ban, the legislation frees up $2.7 billion in previously authorized funding to ramp up domestic uranium production.

ATLANTA (AP) — The second of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia has entered commercial operation, capping a project that cost billions more and took years longer than originally projected.

Georgia Power Co. and fellow owners announced the milestone Monday for Plant Vogtle’s Unit 4, which joins an earlier new reactor southeast of Augusta in splitting atoms to make carbon-free electricity.

Unit 3 began commercial operation last summer, joining two older reactors that have stood on the site for decades. They’re the first two nuclear reactors built in the United States in decades.

The new Vogtle reactors are currently projected to cost Georgia Power and three other owners $31 billion, according to calculations by The Associated Press. Add in $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid Vogtle owners to walk away from construction, and the total nears $35 billion.

Electric customers in Georgia already have paid billions for what may be the most expensive power plant ever. The reactors were originally projected to cost $14 billion and be completed by 2017.

Utilities and their political supporters on Monday hailed the plant’s completion. Georgia Gov Brian Kemp proclaimed he was “thankful for this historic achievement by Georgia Power and its partners.” Chris Womack, CEO of Atlanta-based Southern Co., which owns Georgia Power, argues Vogtle will make the state’s electrical grid more reliable and resilient and help the utility meet its goal of zeroing out carbon emissions by 2050.

“These new Vogtle units not only will support the economy within our communities now and in the future, they demonstrate our global nuclear leadership,” Womack said in a statement.

Each of the two new reactors can power 500,000 homes and businesses without releasing any carbon.

Even some opponents of Vogtle have said the United States can’t achieve carbon-free electricity without nuclear power. But Georgia Power, like other utilities, plans to build more fossil fuel generation in coming years, saying demand is rising sharply. That demand, driven by computer data centers, is being felt by multiple utilities across the country.

Calculations show Vogtle’s electricity will never be cheaper than other sources the owners could have chosen, even after the federal government reduced borrowing costs by guaranteeing repayment of $12 billion in loans.

“Hopefully, despite being seven years late and billions over budget, the two new units at Plant Vogtle will finally perform well for at least the next 80 years to justify the excessive cost,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, a consumer group that fought to limit rate increases

In Georgia, almost every electric customer will pay for Vogtle. Georgia Power owns 45.7% of the reactors. Smaller shares are owned by Oglethorpe Power Corp., which provides electricity to member-owned cooperatives, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. Utilities in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as in the Florida Panhandle and parts of Alabama also have contracted to buy Vogtle’s power.

Regulators in December approved an additional 6% rate increase on Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers to pay for $7.56 billion in remaining costs at Vogtle, with the company absorbing $2.6 billion in costs. That’s expected to cost the typical residential customer an additional $8.97 a month in May, on top of the $5.42 increase that took effect when Unit 3 began operating.

Even as government officials and some utilities are looking to nuclear power to alleviate climate change, the cost of Vogtle could discourage utilities from pursuing nuclear power. American utilities have heeded Vogtle’s missteps, shelving plans for 24 other reactors proposed between 2007 and 2009. Two half-built reactors in South Carolina were abandoned. But Westinghouse is marketing the reactor design abroad.

China has said it will build more reactors using the design, while Bulgaria, Poland and Ukraine also say they intend to build nuclear power stations using the Westinghouse reactor.

The plan was to be announced Wednesday in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Three of the anticipated sales would be for Gulf of Mexico tracts to be offered this year, in 2025 and in 2027. Central Atlantic area leases would be sold in 2024 and 2026.

Other anticipated sale areas include the Gulf of Maine (2024 and 2028); Oregon waters (2024); an area of the Atlantic known as New York Bight (2027); and California, Hawaii, and an as-yet unspecified U.S. territory (2028).

The sales will be coordinated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“As we look toward the future, this new leasing schedule will support the types of renewable energy projects needed to lower consumer costs, combat climate change, create jobs to support families, and ensure economic opportunities are accessible to all communities,” Haaland said in a news release ahead of remarks to a conference in New Orleans.

TOKYO (AP) — A team of experts from the U.N. nuclear agency inspected the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant April 24 for a review of its discharge of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspection was part of a four-day visit to Japan that started April 23, its second since the water discharge began last August despite strong protests from fishing groups and neighboring China, which has banned Japanese seafood. The IAEA team will issue a report later.

The Japanese government and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, say the discharges are diluted to better than international standards, and IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi said in March that they were being carried out safely.

During the site visit on April 24, the plant suffered a temporary blackout when some underground digging apparently damaged an electrical cable in an area separate from the water discharge. The blackout halted the water discharges for several hours, but the IAEA was nonetheless able to complete its inspection, according to TEPCO.

One excavation worker suffered burns and had to be treated in hospital, but the plant’s cooling systems were unaffected and the water discharge resumed safely Wednesday evening, TEPCO said.

The IAEA did not immediately comment on the blackout.

A 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant’s power supply and reactor cooling functions, triggering meltdowns of three reactors and causing large amounts of radioactive wastewater to accumulate. After more than a decade of cleanup work, the plant began discharging the water after treating it and diluting it with seawater on Aug. 24, starting a process that’s expected to take decades.

After Wednesday’s plant visit, the IAEA team members are expected to have more discussion in Tokyo through Friday. Data and samples collected from the Fukushima plant will be corroborated at IAEA labs and independent third-party labs from China, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States, and will be released in a report later.

“This independent, objective and science-based approach will help build confidence to the people in Japan and beyond,” mission leader Gustavo Caruso, director of safety and security coordination at IAEA, said at a meeting Tuesday with Japanese officials.

The team includes independent international experts from 10 countries – Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Russia, South Korea, the United States and Vietnam.

Japan’s government and TEPCO note that the treated water is filtered and diluted by large amounts of seawater. Results of monitoring of seawater and marine life samples near the plant show concentrations of tritium, the only inseparable radioactive material, are far below recommended limits, they say.

Fishing groups worry about a negative reputation from the release, and neighboring China has not been convinced of the safety. China banned all imports of Japanese seafood immediately after the release began.

The plant has released about 31,200 tons of the treated water in four batches. The ongoing fifth batch of 7,800-ton release lasts through May 7.

The cable damage and blackout was a latest in a series of incidents at the plant in recent months. In October, two workers were hospitalized after being splashed with radioactive liquid while cleaning a water treatment system, though they had no health problems from the exposure. In February, some contaminated water leaked at another facility on the plant due to human error.