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Huge hurdles to overcome before restarting Japan’s nuclear reactors

Japan’s nuclear re-start bogged down in safety checks and paperwork, Daily Times 9 Feb 14 Hundreds of technicians and engineers are camped out in Tokyo hotels trying to revive Japan’s nuclear industry, shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster almost three years ago.

It’s proving a hard slog. A new, more independent regulator is in place, asking difficult questions and seeking to impose tougher safety rules on powerful utilities that were largely their own masters for the past 50 years.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) was created in 2012 and set new safety guidelines in July last year. It now has four teams vetting reactors at nine nuclear power stations on a list of those seeking to re-start. A deadline to complete the checks has been missed as the NRA is still asking for reams of information. No one is able to predict when the first of 48 reactors will be turned back on…..
The regulator and staff from the utilities and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, a leading supplier of nuclear plant equipment, are ploughing through mountains of paperwork on the technical specifications of reactors and their vulnerability to natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami that knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi station in March 2011……
nce the checks are done, reactors must undergo planned inspections, which took as long as two months under the previous regime, as well as get the go-ahead from local authorities before they can be turned back on. The plants are being treated as if they have just been built and are seeking certification to start operating for the first time.
Interviews with utility and nuclear industry staff, regulators and government officials reveal a climate of uncertainty, frustration and long hours…..
Utilities must submit thousands of pages of documents outlining their compliance and readiness on a checklist of 27 main items required by the NRA, covering everything from quake protection to their emergency responses. Kyushu Electric, which has applied to re-start four reactors, has alone submitted more than 10,000 pages of documents to the regulator, said spokesman Hiroki Yamaguchi…..http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/10-Feb-2014/japan-s-nuclear-re-start-bogged-down-in-safety-checks-and-paperwork

February 10, 2014 - Posted by | Uncategorized

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