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Japan regulator to pause Chubu Electric nuclear power plant review pending report
CHUBU ELEC-NUCLEARPOWER/:Japan regulator to pause Chubu Electric nuclear power plant review pending report
By Chang-Ran Kim
TOKYO, - Japan’s nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it would order Chubu Electric Power to submit a detailed report on falsified seismic data and pause its review of the utility's application to restart its only atomic plant. Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority had previously warned of a severe response against Chubu Electric, including scrapping the review altogether following revelations it had tampered with data used in the reviews of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at its Hamaoka plant, located in Shizuoka prefecture on the country's Pacific Coast.
At its regular meeting on Wednesday, the NRA agreed to issue a formal reporting order and conduct on-site inspections to clarify the facts behind the irregularities. It gave the utility until March 31 to provide findings on the cause of the misconduct, and said it would pause the review process, citing the compromised credibility of the supporting documents provided so far.
Chubu Electric's applications to review the two units began more than a decade ago, and some experts had expected a possible resumption by 2030. The company's latest business plan predicted a restart in the near future, which it estimated would shave about 260 billion yen a year in power procurement costs.
The utility plans to decommission the No.1 and No.2 units at Hamakao and has yet to apply for a restart of the site's fifth reactor. The NRA's decision comes as Tokyo Electric Power is preparing to turn on this month its first nuclear power plant since a tsunami in 2011 destroyed the company's Fukushima Daiichi station and caused the worst nuclear disaster since the Chornobyl crisis in Russia in 1986 and shook the public's confidence in atomic power. All 54 reactors in Japan were shut down following the Fukushima meltdown and, since then, the country has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has backed nuclear restarts to strengthen energy security and to counter the cost of imported fossil fuels, which account for some 60% to 70% of Japan's electricity generation.
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