information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
14 Février 2015
February 14, 2015
The Nuclear Regulation Authority has formally approved an application by Kansai Electric Power Co. to restart the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at its Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The decision means that the two offline reactors meet its safety standards.
This is the second time the NRA has endorsed the safety of reactors under tighter standards introduced after the outbreak of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011. Two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture have also been granted the safety clearance.
The focus will now be on whether local governments in the vicinity give their consent. However, there is no law stating which prefectures and municipalities should be involved in the process.
With regard to the Sendai plant, Kagoshima Governor Yuichiro Ito decreed that only Kagoshima prefectural authorities and the facility's host city of Satsuma-Sendai should have any say.
The Abe administration decided to use the Sendai plant as a template for its push to bring idled reactors back online. In line with this policy, Kansai Electric and Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa intend to seek the consent of only the prefecture and the town of Takahama for the restart.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster brutally underscored the reality that a severe accident can affect vast areas.
Allowing reactors to be restarted under the regulatory framework in place before the outbreak of the crisis is simply unacceptable.
The current approach for local government consent covers only the prefecture and the host municipality. Instead of treating this as an established system, the government should redefine the scope of local governments concerned before reactors are brought back online.
For instance, the city of Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, is within five kilometers of the Takahama plant. This means residents of the city would have to be evacuated immediately if there was a major accident at the plant.
Eight municipalities in Kyoto and Shiga prefectures lie within 30 km of the facility. These local governments are required by the state to compile evacuation plans for nuclear emergencies. The total population of the eight municipalities exceeds 120,000. This compares with 50,000 or so people living in the Fukui Prefecture area of the 30-km zone.
The NRA is also assessing the safety of the Oi plant in Fukui Prefecture, the Genkai plant in Saga Prefecture, the Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture, the Shimane plant in Shimane Prefecture and the Shika plant in Ishikawa Prefecture. All of these facilities lie close to neighboring prefectures.
A key indicator of the government's stance toward this issue will be the scope of the local governments involved in the process of restarting the two reactors at the Takahama plant.
MORE 'EYES' NEEDED
The requisite consent from local governments hosting nuclear plants for operating reactors is based on safety agreements between these governments and the plant operators.
As many nuclear power plants were constructed in the 1970s onward, the number of problems with the facilities has increased. Yet, crucial information about these problems was tightly controlled by the plant operators and the central government, with local governments concerned often left out of the loop.
This prompted host governments to strike deals with the operators of nuclear plants to demand relevant information so that they can closely monitor safety aspects from the standpoint of local residents.
For instance, agreements between Fukui Prefecture and operators of nuclear plants in the prefecture include a provision that allows local governments to demand the suspension of a reactor under certain circumstances, as well as a clause requiring advance discussions before restarting reactors after a serious incident.
The prefectures acquired these rights through persistent negotiations with the operators following every incident and glitch along the way.
Since the Fukushima disaster, which has made residents of municipalities around nuclear plants uneasy about the safety of the facilities, many local governments across the nation have started calling for similar agreements with plant operators.
Kansai Electric, however, has been reluctant to respond to these calls.
The utility is currently in talks with Kyoto Prefecture for a new agreement, but refuses to accede to the prefecture's call for the right to consent.
Fukui Governor Nishikawa supports this stance, stressing that host governments have been assuming related “responsibilities and risks.”
Host governments are probably wary about giving a say to local governments that are not as deeply involved in nuclear plant-related matters.
However, the participation of surrounding governments in the process of deciding whether to restart reactors would lead to a broader scope of safety monitoring through a greater number of eyes.
Host governments have acquired the right to look into the safety of the nuclear plants on their own and, should they decide, refuse to approve plans to restart reactors if there are safety concerns. They should share this privilege with surrounding local governments to widen the scope of local communities that have a say in the matter.
CONSENT OF 30-KM ZONE
The three prefectures of Fukui, Kyoto and Shiga, as well as municipalities concerned, have worked out evacuation plans for broad areas in accordance with the central government's nuclear disaster-response guidelines. However, work has barely started on coordinating details to ensure the evacuations will be carried out properly.
If a serious nuclear incident occurs in Fukui Prefecture, more than 100,000 people in the three prefectures may have to be evacuated, mainly to the Kansai region.
Such a scenario conjures up images of major traffic snarls and serious confusion. Many issues need to be sorted out, including how to secure buses for evacuations.
In January, the Union of Kansai Governments, which groups seven prefectures and four designated cities, called on the central government to get actively involved in efforts to ensure the effectiveness of wide-area evacuation plans.
Until the central government commits itself to this task, the union warned, there is little likelihood that calls to restart the Takahama reactors will be accepted.
Operators of nuclear plants planning to restart reactors should be required to gain prior consent from all local governments responsible for the safety of residents during nuclear emergencies.
For the time being, the local government consent program should cover all areas within 30 km of nuclear plants, in line with the emergency evacuation zones defined by the government’s nuclear disaster-response guidelines.
It may also be advisable to consider providing a legal basis in the future for the requirement of local consent, which is currently based only on agreements between plant operators and local governments.
This step would help remind nuclear plant operators that this is a process of great gravity.
REUNITING LOCAL TIES
When two reactors at the Oi plant were restarted in 2012, local government heads in the Kansai region, which uses electricity produced at the plant, temporarily expressed their opposition to the move. As a result, Fukui Prefecture became isolated.
The one-sided push against the restart of the reactors caused Fukui Prefecture to develop deep-rooted distrust of local governments in areas that consume electricity generated by the facility.
It is essential to make fresh efforts to overcome the conflict of interests and reunite the relationships among the broader range of local communities concerned.
We suggest the central government take the lead by coordinating talks among the governors of Fukui and Kansai prefectures, along with the mayors of municipalities within 30 km of the plant, to build consensus on the scope and rights of local governments involved.
There is a raft of problems that need to be resolved through cooperation between areas where nuclear plants are located and those that consume the electricity the sites produce. These include, for instance, where to store spent nuclear fuel rods piled up in storage pools at nuclear plants and how to support local communities that would lose their main revenue source when aged nuclear plants are decommissioned.
This process will undoubtedly require a great deal of time and effort. But sufficient time should be spent on tackling the challenges presented by the harrowing incident at the Fukushima plant.
The future of nuclear power generation is a question that should be answered through national debate.
We are eager to see Fukui and Kansai take a first step in this direction together.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 14
/image%2F1225368%2F20190314%2Fob_566073_child-evacuee-sspeakss-out.png)
/image%2F1225368%2F20190228%2Fob_9e5665_dossier-6.PNG)
/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.over-blog.com%2Ft%2Fcedistic%2Fcamera.png)