Japan fires up 1st post-Fukushima regulated reactor

Japan restarted its first nuclear power plant on Tuesday morning under stricter safety standards that were introduced in July 2013 after the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

The Sendai reactor will start generating electricity by Friday, according to the plant’s operator, Kyushu Electric Power Company.

Kyushu Electric said the 846-megawatt pressurised water reactor unit had gone back online without any problems.

Protesters, joined by former Prime Minister Naoto Kan who was in office during the Fukushima disaster, gathered outside the Sendai plant on Monday.

“There is no such thing as absolute safety”, he said, but any accident “would be contained before it reached a scale anywhere near what happened in Fukushima”. “And here all of the necessary precautions to prevent an accident have not been taken”.

The March 2011 quake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station north of Tokyo led to the shutdown of all Japan’s reactors and shifted attitudes globally on nuclear power.

Some 160,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding areas in the following weeks – continuing high radiation levels mean most have never been able to return home.

Before the Fukushima accident, in which three reactors suffered meltdowns, nuclear power accounted for around 30 percent of Japan’s electricity.

More than 20 more reactors are being inspected to see whether they meet the new rules.

A total of 25 reactors have applied to restart, but all are facing legal challenges from concerned locals, the BBC reported.

The public remains skeptical about the plants’ safety, however. Two years ago, two reactors were briefly restarted but were switched off again in fall 2013. But many communities don’t want their reactors back on line, and experts say idled plants deteriorate quickly.

But the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stated the restart is very important for measures to address global warming, energy security, and for the economy. By using its experience in addressing the Sendai plant-related application, the NRA should expedite its examination of similar applications that have been submitted.

Japan’s powerful pro-nuclear lobby is hoping a safe restart at Sendai, about 1,000km south of Tokyo, will help the public overcome the trauma caused by the Fukushima meltdown.

That’s Japan. Where the long-awaited restart of the country’s nuclear reactor fleet officially began yesterday. “We will proceed with the (restarting) process by putting safety first”, President Michiaki Uriu said in a statement.

English: Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Established in October 2003, Bhavini is a nuclear power utility company wholly owned by the Government of India under the Department of Atomic Energy. But no country has ever shut down as many plants as Japan has, and for such an extended period.