It was commissioned in 1974 before being taken offline for regular inspections in January 2011. Shortly thereafter, in March, as a result of an earthquake and massive tsunami, core meltdowns occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and the reactor remained shut down. On Friday, the operating company Kansai Electric Power drove him again. The reactor is scheduled to generate electricity starting next Wednesday before resuming full operation on August 28.
After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima on March 11, 2011, Japan shut down all of the reactors in the country and introduced significantly tightened safety standards. Despite the catastrophe and the constant threat of new earthquakes, Japan continues to rely on nuclear power.
Reduce dependency and achieve climate protection goals
On the one hand, the resource-poor country wants to reduce its dependency on oil and gas imports. On the other hand, Japan wants to achieve its climate protection goals: CO2 emissions are to be reduced to zero by 2050. By 2030, the government wants about 20 to 22 percent of electricity generation to come from nuclear power and 36 to 38 percent from renewable sources.
To achieve this goal, almost 30 reactors would have to be restarted, which is unrealistic given the lengthy permitting procedures and local resistance, the newspaper Nikkei Asia recently wrote. Japan’s parliament recently enacted a law that no longer limits the operating life of nuclear reactors to 60 years – but allows them to potentially run indefinitely.
Green light for operation as early as 2016
The restart of reactor number 1 at the Takahama power plant was originally scheduled for June, but the plan was postponed due to the need for additional work on the fire safety infrastructure. The restart comes after Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency gave the green light for the reactor to operate in 2016.
Three of the four reactors of the Takahama power plant are now in operation, only reactor number 2 is still shut down. According to the energy supplier, this reactor should also be started up again in September. Of the more than 40 commercial reactors in Japan nationwide, eleven reactors are now back in operation.
Meanwhile, Japan is preparing to discharge large volumes of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear site into the sea after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently gave the go-ahead. However, the plan continues to face opposition from local fishermen and neighboring countries like China. The reactors destroyed in the 2011 meltdown still have to be cooled with water that has so far been filtered and stored in hundreds of tanks. Because of overload, the water is to be filtered and then dumped in the Pacific.
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