RESTART OF NIIGATA IDLE NUCLEAR REACTOR POSTPONED UNTIL 2029 - TOKYO JAPAN
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| @Jr_Paku Midin Channel |
TOKYOThe operator of a nuclear power plant in Japan's Niigata Prefecture said Thursday it has postponed the completion of anti-terrorism measures at one of its idle reactors beyond the October deadline to 2029.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc aims to restart the No. 7 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant northwest of Tokyo by this summer, but it is likely to face prolonged suspension again after the October deadline passes.
The seven-reactor facility is one of the world's largest nuclear power plants capable of generating a total of 8.212 million kilowatts of electricity. It served as an important energy source to supply electricity to the Tokyo metropolitan area before the 2011 massive earthquake and nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.
TEPCO, which had planned to complete the facility by March, now aims to end the construction work in August 2029. The utility has reported the postponement of the fulfillment of anti-terrorism measures to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
Taking steps against terrorist threats became mandatory under the stricter safety standards implemented after the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima Prefecture triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster.
To prepare for possible terror attacks, such as aircraft being flown into them, the measures require the installment of an emergency control room away from the reactor building to maintain the cooling of reactors.
TEPCO, meanwhile, will also postpone the completion of such measures at its No. 6 reactor to September 2031 from the earlier goal of September 2026, it said.
The utility was unable to proceed with the project as planned as the work is several times larger in scale than the construction of a reactor building and not enough construction workers were available, said Takeyuki Inagaki, TEPCO's superintendent at the plant.
"It is difficult to foresee a construction schedule for a project of such an unprecedented scale," Inagaki told a press conference.
The Nos. 6-7 reactors cleared safety screenings by the nuclear regulator in 2017.
But the nuclear regulator effectively banned the restart of the plant in 2021 due to serious safety flaws after a series of problems surfaced including an unauthorized entry to the control room. The ban was lifted in 2023 and the utility loaded nuclear fuel into the No. 7 reactor in April last year.
The restart of the reactors still requires local consent, but Niigata Gov Hideyo Hanazumi has yet to announce whether he will agree to it.
The mayor of Kashiwazaki, one of the host cities which supports the restart of the reactors under certain conditions, expressed disappointment.
"I thought the delay would be just around six months or a year," said Kashiwazaki Mayor Masahiro Sakurai, adding the city's stance on nuclear plants remained unchanged.
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