Nuclear reactor owned by Fukushima plant operator TEPCO suspends hours-old restart
TOKYO– The restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant was suspended on Thursday just hours after its first resumption since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The restart of the No. 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in north-central Japan has been suspended due to a problem with the control rods, essential for the safe start-up and shutdown of the reactors, according to its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings.
TEPCO said the issue did not pose a safety concern and that it was investigating the situation. It was unclear when the reboot process would resume.
The restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was closely watched as TEPCO also runs the Fukushima Daiichi plant which was ruined in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and as resource-poor Japan accelerates the use of atomic power to meet growing electricity needs.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s seven reactors have been dormant for a year after the Fukushima plant’s reactor meltdown contaminated surrounding land with radioactive fallout so severe that some areas are still unlivable.
TEPCO is working to clean up the Fukushima site, the cost of which is estimated at 22 trillion yen ($139 billion). It is also trying to recover from reputational damage after government and independent investigations blamed the Fukushima disaster on TEPCO’s poor safety culture and criticized it for collusion with safety authorities.
Fourteen other nuclear reactors have restarted in Japan since 2011, but the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, located about 220 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, is the first TEPCO-run unit to resume production.
A restart of Reactor No. 6 could generate an additional 1.35 million kilowatts of electricity, enough to power more than a million homes in the capital region.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s combined generating capacity of 8 million kilowatts makes it the largest plant in the world, although TEPCO plans to reopen only two of the seven reactors in the coming years.
