nuclear-news

No evacuation plan, yet PM Abe restarts another Sendai nuclear reactor

Last year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would not allow a reactor startup unless its safety is completely confirmed.  But the process of approving reactor restarts at the Sendai nuclear power plant has not been in line with his pledge at all

 Safety put on the back burner as another nuclear reactor is restarted, Asahi Shimbun, 14 Oct 15  Kyushu Electric Power Co. is set to restart the No. 2 reactor at its Sendai nuclear power plant in Satsuma-Sendai, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Oct. 15. In August, the plant’s No. 1 reactor became the first to resume operations under new safety regulations that went into force in July 2013.

Some areas near the plant may not even have a dependable evacuation route in the event of a disaster. Furthermore, no evacuation drills for residents have been undertaken.

The electric utility’s plan to restart the idled reactor was given the green light by the Nuclear Regulation Authority. The nuclear watchdog body has no authority, however, to examine evacuation plans.

A reactor should not be restarted under such circumstances.

Four hundred or so people live in the Soro district near the mouth of the Sendaigawa river, the community located closest to the Sendai nuclear plant.

Experts have warned that all possible evacuation routes for the residents would become unusable in case of multiple disasters stemming from an accident at the plant, leaving the community totally isolated………

The myth that a serious nuclear accident is unlikely to occur because of a natural disaster was utterly destroyed by the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.

In order to ensure the safety of local residents, evacuation plans that include designated evacuation routes should also be part of the procedure for approving a reactor restart.

A system to assess the effectiveness of evacuation plans through drills involving residents, with a way of making revisions to the plans if necessary, should be established from the viewpoint of residents. Such functions could be placed under the NRA or another organization.

Also causing safety concerns among residents is the decision to bring the No. 2 reactor back online without replacing its aged steam generators. At the Sendai plant, small pipes in the No. 1 reactor’s steam generators were found to be corroded one after another around 2000, forcing the utility to replace the generators in 2008.

In 2009, Kyushu Electric Power announced plans to replace all three steam generators at the No. 2 reactor as part of moves to “further enhance the reliability” of the reactor. The utility received permission to do this from the industry minister.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, however, the company decided to postpone the replacement as it became preoccupied with making preparations for the NRA’s inspections based on post-Fukushima safety requirements.

In May this year, the company’s plan to restart the reactor with the old steam generators was approved by the NRA. The replacement has still not been done.

Kyushu Electric Power says it only considered replacing the generators as a highly precautionary measure and stresses that its plan to restart the reactor with the current generators has cleared the NRA’s safety checks.

But failing to take the step that was necessary for enhancing reliability inevitably undermines reliability.

Not surprisingly, local residents have voiced concerns about the safety of the reactor, questioning its ability to withstand a major earthquake.

Last year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would not allow a reactor startup unless its safety is completely confirmed.

But the process of approving reactor restarts at the Sendai nuclear power plant has not been in line with his pledge at all. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201510150040

October 16, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety