New survey of faults at Kashiwazaki

March 10, 2014

TEPCO surveying faults under Kashiwazaki plant

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140310_22.html

Tokyo Electric Power Company has begun an additional survey of geological faults under a nuclear power plant in Niigata on the Sea of Japan. Confirmation that the faults are not active is one of the requirements for restarting the plant's idle reactors.

TEPCO last year applied for safety screenings by the Nuclear Regulation Authority of the numbers 6 and 7 reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. The reactors are currently offline for regular inspections. The NRA asked the utility to conduct further underground studies of the 23 faults that lie under its reactor buildings and other parts of the complex.

On Monday, TEPCO began drilling operations to check the hardness of the strata. The work was shown to the media at one place a little over a kilometer from the plant.

TEPCO plans to dig observation pits 4 meters in diameter and up to 50 meters deep at 4 locations near the reactor buildings. The utility will also conduct drilling surveys in 7 other places in and outside the plant complex. The company says it will take up to 6 months to complete the survey.

TEPCO's latest 10-year business plan, approved by the government in January, assumes a restart of reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in or after July of this year. But the nuclear regulator's safety screening may take longer, depending on the progress of the survey.

Masayoshi Shimada, the plant's deputy chief, says the planned schedule for the restarts is only provisional. He said priority will be placed on safety while the survey is being conducted.

Mar. 10, 2014 - Updated 06:52 UTC