Prior to the Fukushima disaster, nuclear had provided about 30 percent of Japan’s electricity, with renewable energy accounting for less than 3 percent, excluding hydropower.
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Despite local opposition, Kyushu Electric Power Co said it would reactivate reactor 1 at the Sendai plant, 1,000 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, nearly one year after regulators approved the resumption of its two reactors.
A power plant operator in southern Japan restarted a nuclear reactor on Tuesday, the first to begin operating under new safety requirements following the Fukushima disaster.
Safety officials have stressed that the reactors are going to operate under much tighter regulations than those that existed before Fukushima, the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The reactor will take about 12 hours to go critical and a few days to reach full power, the company has said. Idling all its reactors pending safety checks has cost the country the equivalent of $80 billion in fossil fuel imports to fill the gap.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said only reactors that were deemed to have cleared the “world’s most stringent regulation standards” would be allowed to restart.
However, local residents showed their mistrust over the new safety regulations, indicating they were anxious about potential dangers from active volcanoes in the region.
This is fuelled in part by the Japanese Government’s desire to have as many reactors restarted as possible to reduce the country’s reliance on imported oil and gas.
Question: How important was nuclear power for Japan’s electricity mix and how did it make up for the loss?
A separate protest outside the plant included former Prime Minister Naoto Kan who was serving a term during the Great East Japan quake of 2011. The protesters are concerned that a repeat of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, in which three nuclear reactors melted down, could occur.
Protesters gather at a rally against the restarting of Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai nuclear power station.
Japan has switched on the first nuclear reactor after a two-year ban brought on by the 2011 Fukushima meltdown.
Experts say many more reactors are expected to follow. But Yoichi Miyazawa, the minister in charge of the nation’s nuclear policy, told a press conference Tuesday restarting Japan’s reactors was “vital for our energy security, our economy, and for our efforts in dealing with global warming”.
The successful restart at Sendai was hailed by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), which said the decision “puts Japan on the road to recovery”.
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The Japanese government has set a goal for the nuclear power to cover more than 20 percent of energy needs by 2030. The Sendai second reactor is expected to be restarted in October. The company said it plans to start power generation as soon as August.
