Tsuruga Plant Officially Found Unfit for Resumption

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (RNA) officially issued a document of examination on November 13th, which concluded that reactor #2 of Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant owned by Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) failed in meeting regulation requirements for resuming its operation. It is the first time for a reactor to be denied resumption, since new regulation, established with lessons from the severe accident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, had been applied to all the nuclear power plants in Japan in 2013. 

New regulation prohibits operating a nuclear power reactor on the top of an active fault underground, which may cause a great earthquake. There is a possibly active fault, named “K Fault,” located three hundred meters north of reactor #2 in the underground. RNA reached a conclusion that it was possible for K Fault to be extended to the place just below the reactor.

 

Although JAPC disputed against the argument about the activeness of the fault and its reach to the reactor, NRA dismissed those arguments, saying “Obvious evidence for the denial had not been presented.” JAPC had already lost its confidence with consecutive mistakes in the process of examination of NRA. That include fabricating geological data around the site and over one thousand wrong descriptions in the submitted data. NRA halted the examination twice and made unusual inspection on JAPC.

 

NRA received public opinions, some of which indicated that NRA’s argument on activeness of the fault would be baseless. JAPC is going to continue research to prove that the fault is not active. However, there are more than one hundred faults, active or inactive, underground of the site, on which any estimation for safety has not been made. “It was a major decision for us. It does not make a big difference from our previous decisions, in term of making a strict examination based on science and technology,” said Chairman of NRA, Shinsuke Yamanaka.

 

It is likely that JAPC will be brought on the verge of bankruptcy by NRA decision. In spite of having no active nuclear power plant, JAPC has maintained its business accepting “basic charge” from other power companies, based on possibility of future resumption of its reactors. Each of three power companies, Kansai, Chubu and Hokuriku, has been paying about 10 billion yen of that charge every year. If it decides to decommission the reactor, estimated cost for it will amount to 71 billion yen.

 

One option is seeking transition of JAPC to the business of decommissioning nuclear reactors. However, it has not found a viable way to build a business after eight-year effort for changing. The government of Japan has a policy that it would resume nuclear reactors as many as possible, if they are proved to be safe. But the government cannot prove the safety of underground faults below Tsuruga plant. 

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