Tears, fears, whoops of joy as Sendai reactor restarted

Kyushu Electric Power began removing control rods from a reactor at the Sendai nuclear power plant in southern Japan at 10:30 am Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Japanese government and electric power companies will be tested over whether they have sufficiently learned the lessons and utilised them in safety measures after the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011. This has raised concerns that nobody would be held responsible if another nuclear accident were to take place, just as was the case with the Fukushima crisis.

“I can not stand they are resuming the reactor when the Fukushima nuclear accident remains far from being solved”.

Tomas Kaberger, chairman of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, notes that the peak output of Japan’s nuclear power industry was in 1998.

Similar to the reaction to the Chernobyl accident in 1986, countries around the world reacted with increased trepidation concerning nuclear power.

In the Three Mile Island incident we saw how the private corporations aren’t afraid to cut corners to pad their bottom line – even if that risks a partial nuclear meltdown.

“It is important to restart reactors one by one from the perspective of energy security the economy and measures against global warming but safety always comes first” Industry Minister Yoichi Miyazawa told reporters. The Fukushima plant will be closed permanently, and some of Japan’s oldest reactors are unlikely to meet the new standards.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority, restructured after Fukushima, in September affirmed the safety of the Sendai reactor and another at the same plant.

The resource-poor nation, which once relied on nuclear power for a quarter of its electricity, restarted two reactors temporarily to feed its needs.

However, a majority of Japanese people are still opposed to a nuclear restart, and demonstrators outside the Sendai plant reportedly clashed with police.

Japan has few domestic energy sources, and it imports virtually all the fossil fuels it uses to power its homes and factories. And in 2016, 11 more units could be restored, marking a significant, if incomplete, return to nuclear power. The basic energy plan approved by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year states that Japan’s reliance on atomic power will be reduced to the minimum possible level. Japan’s post-Fukushima energy bill skyrocketed as it scrambled to fill the gap left by taking reactors offline, pushing the country into successive trade deficits. To achieve this, it would be necessary to rebuild or extend the use of aging nuclear reactors beyond the 40-year limit, and construct new reactors.

Even without nuclear power, Japan has managed to avoid power rationing and blackouts.