nuclear-news

Japan’s Fukushima Daini nuclear plant might never restart

Doubts linger over Japan’s nuclear future, FT.com, By Mure Dickie, Tokyo, 4 July 12,  When the world’s appalled gaze turned to Japan’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in March last year, few paid much attention to its sister atomic plant,  , Fukushima Daini,  , just 10 km south……

for all the seeming normality of the scene, Daini’s future is shrouded in doubt.

Work to fully restore safety systems damaged by the tsunami is expected to be completed by March. But even the new bosses of operator Tokyo Electric Power shy away from the question of whether Daini’s reactors will ever be turned back on.

“Nothing is decided yet,” Naomi Hirose, Tepco president since last week, told journalists after a tour of the Daini plant on Wednesday.  Such caution reflects the deep suspicion of the nuclear sector in Japan, where citizens were long assured that its atomic plants could withstand any disaster the seismologically unstable archipelago might throw at them.

Atomic power won a boost last month when Yoshihiko Noda, the prime minister, ordered the restart of two reactors in western Fukui Prefecture. But many voters object: an opinion poll released last week by the Mainichi Shimbun daily newspaper found more than half of respondents opposed Mr Noda’s decision.

And while anti-nuclear activists have found it hard to get traction in Japan, where mass public protest is rare, a flurry of recent demonstrations have brought thousands to the streets of the capital Tokyo….

Daini – which means “number two” in Japanese – was hardly unscathed. The plant is built on slightly higher ground than Daiichi – “number one” – and so inundation depths were lower. But Daini’s sea water pumps of one reactor building were still flooded. Primary cooling systems were crippled and all but one outside power line cut. It took toiling engineers days to bring all the plant’s reactors to cold shutdown. …. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ce753726-c5e2-11e1-a3d5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zmJzTGGS

July 5, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan, safety