nuclear-news

The buzz at Tokyo Electric Power’s (Tepco’s) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant plays out daily across Japan, where utilities employ thousands of workers and spend billions of dollars awaiting the green light to restart commercial operations.

With only three of the country’s 42 operable reactors running, they are betting a national government committed to nuclear power will win over local officials and a wary public who do not believe enough has been done to guarantee safety after the worst meltdown since Chernobyl.

“Even though operating expenses of non-generating reactors remain high, utilities would prefer to keep them open while there is any chance they can restart,” said Mr James Taverner, a Tokyo-based analyst at IHS Markit.

“Utilities have already committed significant expenditure for plants to meet new safety standards, and decommissioning costs are considerable.”

The plant, the world’s biggest with generating capacity of about 8.2 gigawatts, has seven reactors at a facility spread across more than 400ha and located about 217km north-west of Tokyo in the prefecture of Niigata…….

o boost confidence in its facility’s safety, Tepco has spent 470 billion yen on flood barriers, a 15m seawall and a reservoir the size of 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools to supply water in the event a reactor pump fails.

KK’s restart is far from assured. The plant was forced to shut for 21 months following an earthquake in July 2007. Though some units eventually restarted, all were shuttered again after the March 2011 Fukushima accident for safety checks.

The restart of nuclear reactors is opposed by 53 per cent of Japanese and supported by just 30 per cent, according to a nationwide poll conducted earlier this year by the Mainichi newspaper.

Should KK clear the necessary regulatory, legal and political hurdles and resume operations, Tepco plans to maintain the facility’s workforce at current levels, a reflection of how many workers are needed even during a period called cold shutdown. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/nuclear-plant-cant-sell-power-but-thousands-still-work-there