information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
13 Décembre 2014
December 13, 2014
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141213p2a00m0na012000c.html
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) secretariat will submit documents by year's end effectively approving reactor safety measures -- opening the way for the restart of those reactors -- at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture, it was announced Dec. 12.
It will become the second time that nuclear reactors will have passed new, stricter safety regulations put in place after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns. The first approval was for the No. 1 and 2 reactors at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. Approval paves the way for reactivation of the reactors.
The draft report is expected to be presented at an NRA regular meeting on Dec. 17 or Dec. 24. If the authority grants its approval, the document will be subjected to public comment for a month, after which an official decision on whether to ratify it will be made.
Other remaining procedures include obtaining a construction permit and getting the agreement of locals to restart the reactors. The actual reactivation would not occur until spring 2015 at the earliest.
Based on its previous experience with the Sendai plant, the government believes that it can proceed with reactivation if it gets the agreement of the Fukui Prefectural Government and the government of the town of Takahama, where the plant is located. In the case of the Sendai reactors, however, the 30-kilometer emergency evacuation planning area around the plant was entirely within Kagoshima Prefecture. The 30-kilometer area around the Takahama plant stretches across three prefectures: Fukui, Kyoto and Shiga, raising the possibility of local opposition.
Takahama plant operator Kansai Electric Power Co. has boosted safety measures at the station to withstand a quake of 700 Gals (a unit of acceleration) from 550 Gals. It has improved tsunami countermeasures to withstand a wave 6.2 meters high, up from 5.7 meters. New protection measures, such as raising seawalls by two meters to make them eight meters tall, have cost 103 billion yen.
At the end of October, Kansai Electric reported these new measures in an addendum to a request for permission to alter its nuclear reactors. The NRA has been examining this addendum as it prepares the document giving a passing grade to the plant's safety measures.
December 13, 2014(Mainichi Japan)