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Japan halts restart of nuclear plant over poor anti-terror measures

Japan halts restart of nuclear plant over poor anti-terror measures, DAILY SABAH, 
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, TOKYO ASIA PACIFIC APR 07, 2021 Japanese regulators last month fined a nuclear power plant operator over the organization’s inadequate anti-terrorism measures at a plant, and on Wednesday the operator announced that it would accept the penalty, further hurting its plans to restart operations at the facility for at least a year.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which was also the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant that was destroyed in the 2011 disaster, made the announcement in response to a decision by the Nuclear Regulation Authority in late March to ban it from moving any nuclear materials at the No. 7 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture.

The measure will suspend all ongoing steps to restart the plant. Regulators found malfunctioning anti-terrorism equipment and inadequate protection of nuclear materials at multiple locations at the plant from at least 2018………….

he punishment comes as TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the plant after regulators granted safety approvals for its No. 6 and No. 7 reactors in 2017.

Restarting the two reactors is considered crucial for TEPCO to reduce its financial burden in paying for damage caused by the Fukushima disaster. The penalty does not affect the wrecked Fukushima plant, which is being decommissioned.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he will make a final decision “within days” on whether to allow the release into the sea of massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water stored at the plant. TEPCO is expected to run out of storage space for the water in the fall of 2022……..

TEPCO and government officials say radionuclides can be filtered to allowable safety levels, but some experts say the impact on marine life from long-term, low-dose exposure is still unknown…….https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-halts-restart-of-nuclear-plant-over-poor-anti-terror-measures

April 8, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety