Japan’s nuclear regulator chief states reactors won’t restart until next year

Source: Japan Daily Press

Shunichi Tanaka, the chair of Japan’s newly formed Nuclear Regulation Authority, stated on Thursday that no other reactors would be permitted to restart until new safety requirements were established next year, and plants passed following seismic inspections. In addition to the procedures in the event of a terrorist attack, emergency response policies in the case of an accident will be mandatory for nuclear plant operators to follow. A key factor in the collusion between utilities and government authorities that led to the Fukushima crisis was the fact that plant operators had a choice of whether or not to follow recommendations.

Tanaka says that his agency’s new requirements would be drafted by March of next year, and thus become law by July. While he has been disapproving of the two reactors in Oi, Fukui prefecture that were started in the early summer, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has no legal power at this point to shut them down and force further safety inspections. Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), the operator of the Oi nuclear plant, was found to have failed to submit evidence of a possible active fault line beneath its reactors. The Japanese government’s previous regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), gave its approval for the plant to restart without further checks. Tanaka says he will have independent seismologists conduct inspections, and if the faults are confirmed, the reactors will be shut down.

Other plans the Nuclear Regulation Authority has are to raise safety hurdles, for example ordering the same investigation of seismic activity and fault lines at any nuclear plant considered for restart. Towns and communities surrounding reactors within a 30 kilometer (19 mile) radius will also need to come up with expanded emergency procedures and submit them by March. All of these policies and ideas sound great on paper, but we’ll have to wait and see if the nuclear power companies will comply with new regulations, and if they don’t, what power will the nuclear regulator have for enforcement.

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