information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
16 Avril 2013
Osaka court rejects demand to halt nuclear reactor
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130416_37.html
A Japanese court has rejected a suit by local residents demanding 2 nuclear power reactors in central Japan be turned off. The court said the reactors are safe.
The No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture are the only 2 online in Japan following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Operator Kansai Electric Power Company turned the reactors back on in August last year after government tests deemed them safe.
But 262 residents of Fukui Prefecture and nearby areas filed a suit demanding a court injunction to turn them off, saying they could cause a serious accident.
The plaintiffs said control rods to halt operations would not go into the reactors in time in a strong earthquake simultaneously involving 3 active faults in the region.
On Tuesday, Osaka District Court said the court could not accept the plaintiffs' argument.
Presiding judge Kenichi Ono said the court did not recognize a specific danger and that the Ohi plant meets safety standards for the resumption of operations.
Apr. 16, 2013 - Updated 07:51 UTC
A Japanese court rejected a petition to close down the country's only two operating nuclear reactors, in the country's first legal ruling on atomic power since the Fukushima disaster a little over two years ago.
Anti-nuclear advocates had sought to have the reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi plant in Fukui Prefecture shut down because seismologists suspect parts of the station sit above an active fault line, which would be against Japanese law on nuclear siting.
The injunction on Oi was rejected by the court on April 16, Kansai Electric spokesman Akihiro Aoike said by phone.
The Fukushima disaster, the worst nuclear accident in the world in a quarter century, prompted the gradual shutdown of all Japan's nuclear reactors until there were none left operating in May 2012, leaving the country without atomic power for the first time since 1970.
Japan has faced a soaring fuel bill as power companies ramped up purchases of gas, oil and coal to make up for atomic power, which accounted for 30 percent of the country's electricity supply before the disaster.
A government decision last June to restart the Oi reactors galvanized the country's previously dormant anti-nuclear movement, sparking the biggest demonstrations in decades.
Media surveys have shown a majority of Japanese want to abandon atomic energy by 2030, if not sooner.
The country's new nuclear regulator is still investigating whether the suspected fault under the station is active.
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130416p2g00m0dm079000c.html
OSAKA (Kyodo) -- The Osaka District Court on Tuesday turned down a suit seeking to suspend the operation of two reactors at the Oi power plant run by Kansai Electric Power Co. in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast.
The court rejected the lawsuit filed by a group of some 260 residents in western Japan seeking suspension of the two reactors which were re-launched in July 2012.
The plaintiffs are residents in eight prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto, Fukui, Gifu, Shiga, Nara, Wakayama and Hyogo who are worried about the possible outbreak of a severe nuclear disaster at the plant in the event of a major earthquake.
Presiding Judge Kenichi Ono said in the ruling that the two reactors satisfy safety standards that are deemed reasonable.
It was the first judicial decision on the operation of reactors other than the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, since the March 2011 outbreak of the nuclear disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant in northeastern Japan.
The No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the four-reactor Oi plant are the only ones currently in operation among the country's 50 reactors.
The plaintiffs filed the suit with the Osaka court in March 2012, seeking a court order to halt the re-launch of the two reactors. The two reactors went into operation four months later in July that year, as the government allowed Kansai Electric to re-launch the reactors.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant clearly showed that the government's safety standards for reactors were wrong.
They also insisted that there were three active faults near the Oi power plant and that a major temblor caused by those faults could lead to a serious nuclear disaster.
In response, Kansai Electric argued that it had taken additional safety measures in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, adding that anti-earthquake measures were secured at the Oi plant.
In June 2012, the residents filed a separate lawsuit against the government seeking a government order to suspend the operation of the two reactors at the Oi power plant.
Kansai Electric, the country's second-largest power utility firm after Tokyo Electric, provides power to the whole region of Kyoto, Osaka, Shiga, Nara and Fukui, and parts of Hyogo, Mie and Gifu prefectures.
Staff Writer
OSAKA – In a key decision likely to affect efforts to restart the nation’s nuclear power plants, the Osaka District Court ruled Tuesday that two reactors in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, are operating under rational safety standards and that it is not clear there is a concrete danger posed by their location near active faults.
The decision allows the Oi plant’s reactors 3 and 4, the only two of Japan’s 50 commercial nuclear reactors currently online, to continue operating until they are due to be shut down for safety inspections in September.
Some 260 antinuclear activists in Fukui Prefecture and the Kansai region had sought an injunction to shut them down, arguing they don’t meet government standards for the time it takes for control rods to be inserted in an emergency shutdown in the event of a major earthquake.
Because of this, they said, the government should order Kansai Electric Power Co. to halt their operation.
The utility meanwhile argued that it had taken additional safety measures since the meltdown disaster started at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, including steps to lessen the impact of a major earthquake at the Oi plant.
The court, however, ruled that “the Oi No. 3 and No. 4 reactors satisfy recognized safety standards, and we cannot say that there is a concrete danger.”
The plaintiffs had argued that government standards require a reactor to be shut down 2.2 seconds after an earthquake, but the Oi reactors would take longer and thus are in violation of their operating license.
The court did not agree, saying the 2.2-second margin is not a set law but a safety judgment, and even if the amount of time was longer, it’s not certain there is a concrete danger.
“The verdict today was a travesty. The government says if there’s an active fault under a reactor, you shouldn’t operate it,” said Aileen Mioko Smith, one of the plaintiffs seeking the injunction.
She and the plaintiffs’ lawyers termed the decision as a gift to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and those in the government and utilities seeking to restart Japan’s remaining 48 reactors.
/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.over-blog.com%2Ft%2Fcedistic%2Fcamera.png)
/image%2F1225368%2F20190309%2Fob_2ace02_1000-water-tanks.jpg)
/image%2F1225368%2F20190307%2Fob_afc703_fukuleaks-report.jpg)