nuclear-news

Chubu Electric seeks to restart Hamaoka nuclear plant

http://www.4-traders.com/CHUBU-ELECTRIC-POWER-COMP-6491212/news/Chubu-Electric-Power-CompanyIncorporate–Chubu-Electric-seeks-to-restart-Hamaoka-nuclear-plant-17948063/

TOKYO, Feb. 14 — (Kyodo) _ Chubu Electric Power Co. applied Friday for a state safety assessment of one of its reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan that was forced to shut down in 2011 as the previous government viewed operation of the complex as too risky.

With the move, the total number of reactors for which applications for safety checks have been submitted to the Nuclear Regulation Authority rose to 17.

The NRA is expected to employ the same procedure to check the Hamaoka No. 4 unit as for the other reactors, effectively ignoring the unusual government request issued in May 2011 for operation of the plant to be suspended because of doubts about its preparedness for tsunami.

Located on the Pacific coast, about 190 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, the Hamaoka complex is known to be located on an assumed epicentral area for a massive earthquake. Two of the five reactors at the plant were retired in 2009.

Chubu Electric has been working to install huge seawalls and implement other measures to protect the plant, which are expected to be completed by September 2015.

Japan has revamped its regulatory setup by launching the NRA and also introduced a set of new safety requirements that reflect the lessons learned from the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, sparked by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The country’s 48 commercial reactors have to satisfy the new nuclear regulations before they can be restarted.

The NRA has not finished any of the safety checks so far, and Japan is currently without nuclear power generation.

(c) 2014 Kyodo News International, Inc.

February 14, 2014 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized