Japanese court issued an injunction to halt two of the four nuclear reactors restarted by the country’s utilities, backing local residents who were anxious about a repeat of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
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A court issued an unprecedented order Wednesday for a nuclear reactor near Kyoto to stop operating and ordered a second one to stay offline.
“There is no place like Fukushima – except maybe Chernobyl – to see how awful a nuclear accident is”, says Shinichi Niitsuma, one of the volunteer tour guides for the town of Namie.
Kansai Electric Power Co. failed to show the public that its Takahama No. 3 and No. 4 reactors are safe for operation, the Otsu District Court said on Wednesday. Kansai Electric had also been working to restart Takahama No. 4 reactor this month after an unplanned shutdown due to a technical problem last week. But it said it would appeal.
A Kansai Electric spokesman said it has now become extremely hard to enact a reduction in the power fees that it charges customers planned for May that would have passed on the fuel cost savings from the Takahama restart. They also worry about radiation impact on nearby Lake Biwa, a key source of drinking water for western Japan. The following table shows the latest status of Japan’s nuclear power plants, according to a Reuters survey.
The decision comes about a week after three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima plant, were indicted on criminal negligence charges over the 2011 accident.
Anti-nuclear sentiment still runs high in Japan and there was widespread opposition to restarts.
Abe has argued that resuming nuclear power was key to Japan’s energy policy, but memories of Fukushima are still fresh for many.
Tsunami flooding caused the cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture to malfunction, triggering a nuclear meltdown.
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Japan has since set up an independent atomic watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), replacing the previous arrangement where the industry ministry both oversaw the regulator and promoted nuclear power.
