At Least 4 Nuke Plants Will Apply for Restart Under the New Safety Regulations to Be Implemented in July

If they are approved, there will be 8 additional reactors, including one with MOX fuel, will be online in Japan, in addition to two reactors at Ooi Nuclear Power Plant.

These plants are:

1. Takahama Nuclear Power Plant: Reactor 3 (MOX), Reactor 4, operated by Kansai Electric Power Company;

2. Ikata Nuclear Power Plant: Reactor 3, operated by Shikoku Electric Power Company;

3. Sendai Nuclear Power Plant: Reactor 1, Reactor 2, operated by Kyushu Electric Power Company; and

4. Tomari Nuclear Power Plant: Reactors 1, 2 and 3, operated by Hokkaido Electric Power Company.

Hokkaido Electric has postponed the plan to use MOX fuel for Reactor 3, but the plan is not abandoned. With local municipalities counting on MOX fuel subsidies to the tune of 6 billion yen, big money for these small municipalities, there will be a strong pressure for Hokkaido Electric, once the plant is back in operation, to pursue MOX fuel.

Shikoku Electric's Ikata Nuclear Power Plant sits near the tail end of the Median Tectonic Line, one of the biggest fault lines in Japan.

NHK News (5/28/2013) says the operators of these plants are going to apply anyway even though the plants may not satisfy the new safety regulations being compiled by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority.

Some of the problems that even NHK seems to recognize are:

津波対策の基準となる最大規模の津波や、新たに求められた火山について評価や安全対策を終えておらず「検討中」としていて、
Risk evaluation and the safety countermeasures for the maximum size of tsunami or for volcanic eruptions that will be newly required haven't been completed, they are "under consideration";

残る２か月足らずで安全性をどこまで確認できるのか具体的な見通しは立っていません。
How much safety can be ascertained in less than two months is not known;

新基準で義務づけられている、事故時の対策拠点となる「緊急時対策所」を別の施設で代用するケース
There are cases [NHK doesn't say which ones] where "emergency headquarters" as mandated by the new standard will be substituted by other facilities;

「防潮堤」を津波の想定が敷地の高さを下回っているので不要だとしているケース
There are cases where the operators says there is no need for "seawalls" because the expected height of tsunami is lower than the site elevation.

Uh... have we heard the last one before?

I think it is a clever ploy by the plant operators to apply at the same time for 4 plants with 9 total reactors, because the Nuclear Regulatory Authority lacks manpower to be able to assess the safety of each as they solidify the new safety regulations that are still evolving.

According to NHK, the operator of Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 2, Japan Atomic Power Company, says it will apply for the restart of that reactor anyway, even though the reactor has been declared by the Nuclear Regulatory Authority's panel of experts to be directly above the active fault line.

And there is TEPCO, who wants to restart Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant with 7 reactors in Niigata Prefecture, even though they too may be sitting on the active fault line.

Fukushima happened, so we're safe for another decade or two at least. That must be the thinking.

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No Nuke Reactor Operating in Japan on May 6, First in 42 Years

Reactor 3 at Tomari Nuclear Power Plant in Hokkaido will be shut down for the scheduled maintenance around midnight on May 5.

Tomari's Reactor 3 is a Pressurized Water Reactor that started operation in 2009. Tomari Nuclear Power Plant is one of the newer nuclear power plants in Japan; the first reactor started operation in 1989. Reactor 3 plans to start using MOX fuel, but a third-party investigation revealed that the plant operator Hokkaido Electric (HEPCO) had used "shills" in one of the "town hall meetings" for the local residents in July last year to speak favorably of and promote the use of MOX fuel (according to the company announcement in October last year).

Hokkaido's governor Harumi Takahashi is a former career bureaucrat in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and she wants to restart the nuclear plant as soon as possible.

From Mainichi Shinbun (5/4/2012):

泊原発３号機:５日に停止で国内稼働ゼロに　４２年ぶり

Reactor 3 at Tomari Nuke Plant stops on May 5, no nuke plant operating in Japan for the first time in 42 years

国内の原発５０基の中で唯一、運転している北海道電力泊原発３号機（北海道泊村、出力９１．２万キロワット）が５日夜、定期検査のため停止する。国内の原発がすべて止まるのは７０年、当時２基しかなかった原発が検査のため同時停止して以来４２年ぶり。政府は、関西電力大飯原発３、４号機（福井県おおい町）を再稼働させたい考えだが、周辺自治体の理解を得られるめどは立っていない。電力需要の高まる夏を「原発ゼロ」で迎える可能性も出ている。

Reactor 3 at Tomari Nuclear Power Plant operated by Hokkaido Electric (located on Tomari-mura in Hokkaido, 912 MW), the only operating reactor among 50 reactors in Japan, will stop on May 5 night due to the scheduled maintenance. The last time all the nuclear reactors in Japan stopped was 42 years ago in 1970, when there were only two reactors and they stopped at the same time for inspection. The national government wants to re-start Reactors 3 and 4 at Ooi Nuclear Power Plant operated by Kansai Electric (located in Ooi-cho in Fukui Prefecture), but it is not certain whether the local municipalities agree to the restart. There is a possibility that Japan will enter summer with high electricity demand with "zero nuclear reactors operating".

北電によると、泊３号機は検査に向け、４月２８日から徐々に出力を落としてきた。５日午後５時ごろ、核分裂を抑えるための制御棒を原子炉に入れ始め、同１１時ごろ発電を止める。６日午前２時ごろ制御棒の挿入を終え、原子炉が停止。７日午後、炉内の水温が１００度未満に下がる冷温停止状態になる見通しだ。

According to HEPCO, Reactor 3 has been gradually lowering the output since April 28 in preparation for the inspection. At about 5PM on May 5, the control rods will be gradually inserted in the reactor to stop the nuclear fission, and power generation will stop at about 11PM. At about 2AM on May 6, the control rods will be fully inserted to stop the reactor. In the afternoon on May 7, the cold shutdown will be achieved whereby the temperature of water inside the reactor drops below 100 degrees Celsius.

The number of nuclear reactors in Japan is now 50, after four reactors (1, 2, 3 and 4) at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant have been formally declared for decommissioning.

Kansai Electric has been warning the planned blackouts if Ooi Nuclear Power Plant is not restarted by summer. Anti-nuclear net citizens are saying, "Bring it on!"

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Hokkaido Governor Allows the Re-Start of Tomari Nuke Plant Reactor 3

The Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident may be becoming a distant and inconvenient memory for many, including the governor of Hokkaido Harumi Takahashi, a former elite bureaucrat in what is now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

She has just approved the formal re-start of Tomari Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3, despite the protest literally from all over the country. It will be the first re-start of any reactor that has been in maintenance or shut-down after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, and Tomari Reactor 3 will simply switch from the long (since March) post-maintenance test-run to full commercial run without undergoing the so-called "stress test" after the Nuclear Safety Commission rubber-stamped and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency immediately approved.

Governor Takahashi has been receiving campaign donations from executives at Hokkaido Electric Power Company (link in Japanese), and she says she will continue to do so as she sees nothing technically wrong with it.

Reactor 3 of Tomari Nuclear Power Plant was designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and will use MOX-fuel, i.e. in Japanese English, "pluthermal". MOX-fuel will come from France, according to HEPCO (that's Hokkaido Electric Power Company)'s "Pluthermal" webpage (in Japanese).

The Hokkaido prefectural government held a special committee meeting on August 16 to decide whether to allow the re-start of Tomari Reactor 3; the meeting lasted well into the late night, where even the committee members shouted at her that she had already made up her mind and was just trying to fit everything with that conclusion, according to FNN News (in Japanese).

It's all about money, as Haruki "Detarame" Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission said in 2006. It applies to those "genpatsu (nuclear power plant)" towns as well as the "genpatsu" governors like her.

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