nuclear-news

Japanese government still wants to promote the nuclear industry’s future

Critics said the government fears not so much a power crunch as revealing that the country actually can get by without nuclear energy when the last running reactor is halted on May 5 for scheduled maintenance.

Tensions run high over restart of Japan’s nuclear reactors, Times Live,  Takehiko Kambayashi   Sapa-dpa | 10 April, 2012 A 70-year-old temple master went on a week-long hunger strike in late March at the Fukui prefectural government offices against the central government’s efforts to restart idled reactors on the coast of the Sea of Japan.

If idled reactors at the Oi Nuclear Power Plant in the prefecture are allowed to restart, it would lead to the reactivation of other units across the country, said Tetsuen Nakajima, the chief priest of Myotsuji, a temple in Obama city.

The plant is the biggest of the three nuclear power stations run by
the Kansai Electric Power Co.

Nakajima urged Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa and prefectural assembly
members not to cave in to pressure from Tokyo and local businesses,
which are concerned about the economic impact of the ongoing
suspension of 13 nuclear reactors in Fukui.

There are different pressures from abroad. Six environmental and
anti-nuclear organizations from Germany – Atomfree Japan, NABU, BUND,
Greenpeace Germany, ausgestrahlt and International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War – submitted a letter to Nishikawa and Oi
Mayor Shinobu Tokioka, urging them not to allow the hasty reactivation
of the two idled reactors.

“The move showed the world is paying attention,” said Akiko Yoshida,
who is in charge of nuclear and energy issues at Friends of the Earth
Japan.

This is not an issue just for Fukui, but an issue that concerns the
entire country,” she said….. Critics said the government fears not so much a power crunch as revealing that the country actually can get by without nuclear energy when the last running reactor is halted on May 5 for scheduled maintenance.
Those who have opposed the reactor restarts argued the government has
not completed the investigations of the causes of the Fukushima
accident, the world’s worst since Chernobyl in 1986.

On Monday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and other ministers concerned
confirmed the safety of the two reactors at the Oi plant for the
reactivation. They were expected to talk to local government leaders
to get their consent.

Noda said in December that the Fukushima plant had been brought under
control, but recent reports from its operator, the Tokyo Electric
Power Co, suggested precarious situations at the complex could get
worse.

The operator said in late March that the radiation level inside an
outer containment vessel of one of the reactors stood at an extremely
high level, indicating the existence of radioactive material from the
melted fuel there.

An industrial endoscope survey also showed the water level in the
containment vessel was much lower than estimated, only 60 centimetres
deep, considering the amount of water injected into the reactor to
keep the fuel inside cool.

Critics also pointed out that the government has yet to establish a
new nuclear regulatory agency despite its plan to launch the Nuclear
Safety and Security Agency on April 1 as an affiliated agency of the
Environment Ministry.
Without such an agency, the country would have no other options but to
maintain the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, whose response to
the nuclear disaster has been severely criticized. Its set-up is also
seen as problematic because the regulatory agency is under the control
of the Industry Ministry, which has promoted nuclear power generation.

In Fukui prefecture, Nakajima said he became aware of issues of
nuclear power generation in 1968 when his hometown, Obama city, had a
plan to attract an atomic power complex. At that time, six reactors
were already under construction or in the planning stage in other
municipalities of the prefecture, he said.

The government had long deceived the public about the safety of
nuclear power generation, Nakajima charged.

If they ensure the safety of nuclear power plants, “why did the
government build them in places like Fukui and Fukushima, which are
far from major cities?” Nakajima asked.

“At the very beginning, the government created a structure of
discrimination,” he said.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2012/04/10/tensions-run-high-over-restart-of-japan-s-nuclear-reactors

April 11, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, opposition to nuclear