Estimates vary, but experts converge on a view that at least half of the nation’s 48 reactors will make progress or restart by the end of 2015. Also, five-to-seven units in the 40 plus club may set out on the road to decommissioning by March 2016.

Financial analysts who follow the Japanese nuclear industry have multiple views on how many reactors will return to revenue service in 2015. Cantor Fitzgerald forecasts, according to wire service reports, that in the long-term 32 of the nation’s 48 reactors will achieve that outcome with nine of them doing so in 2015. The firm projects another 10 units will restart in 2016 and the remainder in 2017-2018. The firm added a caution to its projections saying that “investors remain skeptical on whether the restarts will actually occur.”

Dundee Capital Markets, in comments made available to financial wire services, said it expects that of the 19 reactors it sees as having the potential to restart, 13 of them are likely to gain approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency in 2015, and, most importantly, also gain support from local and provincial elected officials. The first four reactors expected to return to revenue service are two at Sendai (1 & 2) and two more at the Takahama site (3 & 4). All four units have met new safety requirements. The next reactors on the short list for restarts are likely to be Units 3 & 4 at the Oi nuclear plant.

The drive to restart as many reactors as possible as soon as regulatory and local approvals can be obtained is driven by spiraling costs for natural gas imports and the rate hikes passed on to industry and consumers. A Bloomberg wire service report for 12/17/14 says that Japan’s electric utilities paid about $31 billion more for fossil fuel in 2013 compared to 2010 which is the complete fiscal year prior to Fukushima.

http://neutronbytes.com/2015/01/01/japan-turns-ignition-key-on-efforts-to-restart-its-nuclear-fleet/