Risks of Nuclear Power Plant Focused Again

Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) held a regular meeting on Wednesday and shared a notion that further information about the impact of Noto Peninsula Earthquake on Shika Nuclear Power Plant of Hokuriku Electric Power Company should be analyzed. Hit by major quakes, Shika plant had some troubles, revealing risks for restarting its operations. Discussion over vulnerability of nuclear power plant to earthquake is resumed before the plant restarts.

Magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Noto Peninsula caused multiple troubles in the site of Shika plant. Some of transformers, which control the pressure of electricity supplied from external facilities, were broken, leaking 20 thousand litters of oil. Although fire and explosion were reported right after the earth quake, HEPC corrected the information that the fire had been a smell of oil and the explosion had been a sound of device working in transformers.

 

While HEPC reported no meaningful change in sea level around the plant, it was corrected that some tsunamis arrived the coast several times. The cooler of pools for used nuclear fuels with reactor #1 stopped for forty minutes, but caused no trouble with the fuels. Radioactive water spilled out of the pools of reactor #1 and 2, but HEPC argued that the water did not have any environmental impact.

 

In the regular meeting of NRA, the intensity of Noto Peninsula Earthquake on Shika plant partly exceeded the assumption made by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a governmental organization which was abolished after the accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It was also reconfirmed that eighteen monitoring posts had been unavailable for measuring radiation in the air, possibly affecting evacuation plan in case of accident.

 

Fortunate enough for the residents around the plant, and most people in Japan and the world, Shika Nuclear Power Plant was not in operation. It stopped its operation right after the disaster in Fukushima in 2011, and has not restarted ever since. Although HEPC requested resumption of the reactor #2 in 2014, NRA has not issued an approval for it, continuing research on whether a rift underground of the site would be active or inactive.

 

If a rift right under a nuclear plant was active, the plant cannot be operated in new regulatory rule made after the Fukushima disaster. While NRA approved HEPC’s argument that the rift was not active last year, Noto Peninsula Earthquake brought new concern on the operation of Shika plant. It is likely that a major underground fault along the peninsula has moved beyond the assumptions of experts.

 

In the press conference after the meeting, the chairman of NRA, Shinsuke Yamanaka said that their examination for restart of reactor #2 would take years-long period of time. The quake can also affect the evaluation of possible seismic impacts on the nuclear power plants along the coast of Japan Sea.

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