Energy News  
Japan reactor gets go-ahead

The Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPP.
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (UPI) Jul 23, 2009
Two years after it shut down following an earthquake, the world's largest nuclear station has won approval from the Japanese government to commercially operate one of its seven reactors.

Since May 9 Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia's largest utility, has been carrying out a test run on Japan's Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant's unit 7 reactor. On Tuesday the governor of Niigata prefecture, Hirohiko Izumida, granted the final clearance needed for the 1.356-megawatt reactor's commercial operation, Bloomberg reported.

Located 5.5 miles from the epicenter of the 6.8-magnitude July 16, 2007, quake, the plant was ordered by the government to shut down all seven of its reactors following the disaster.

Tokyo Electric initially reported that the plant was not seriously damaged by the quake. Eventually it admitted that multiple radioactive leaks occurred, and that a damaged exhaust stack had discharged cobalt-60 and chromium-51. In addition, barrels containing low-level radioactive waste had tipped over.

In total, Tokyo Electric said the site suffered damage at some 50 different points.

Tokyo Electric has posted losses since the plant's closure two years ago, forcing it to switch to more expensive fossil fuels. In the first quarter of this year, Tokyo Electric's power sales to industrial users dropped 5.8 percent.

Noting that restarting one single reactor would help to cut Tokyo Electric's costs by some $642 million, its president, Masataka Shimizu, pledged that the company would return to profit this year.

"I hope that Kashiwazaki Kariwa will be able to restart operation soon," Toshihiro Nikai, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, said during a news conference last week.

"Given the current environmental issues and Japan's energy situation, the expectations for Kashiwazaki Kariwa's nuclear power generation are great," Nikai said.

On July 3 Tokyo Electric submitted a request to local authorities for approval to restart unit 6. Now that unit 7 will begin commercial operation, start-up tests for unit 6 are expected to begin.

Japan currently depends on 55 nuclear reactors for 30 percent of its electricity.

Yet the country's nuclear industry has been plagued by a number of accidents. In 2004 five workers were killed and six injured when a steam pipe ruptured at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan. In 1999 two people were killed and hundreds exposed to radioactive contamination at a reprocessing plant.

In early July the Japan Atomic Energy Commission postponed revision of the basic outline of the country's nuclear policy. No date has been set for the next revision, scheduled for 2010.

Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Alstom, Schneider to jointly bid for Areva unit
Paris (AFP) July 23, 2009
Engineering groups Alstom and Schneider said on Thursday they might launch a joint bid for the Transmission and Distribution business being sold by Areva, France's state-controlled nuclear power giant. "Schneider Electric and Alstom envisage submitting a joint offer" for the T&D operations, the two companies said in a statement. Ultimately, Alstom could end up with the transmission ... read more







The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2009 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement