Japan Atomic Power Co. on May 20 applied for safety checks in hopes of restarting a 35-year-old reactor at its Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant, which was damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Japan Atomic Power Co. on May 20 applied for safety checks in hopes of restarting a 35-year-old reactor at its Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant, which was damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The reactor at the plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Tokyo, is the oldest of 18 reactors at 11 nuclear plants across Japan for which operators have sought safety screenings by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). About 980,000 people live within a 30-kilometer radius of the plant, the most among nuclear facilities in Japan. Municipalities around the Tokai plant, including Tokai village, endorsed Japan Atomic Power’s decision to apply for safety checks after the company confirmed the application will not immediately lead to a resumption of operations. The Tokai plant’s lack of up-to-date fireproof electric cables required under the NRA’s new safety standards could pose a hurdle for approval. However, Japan Atomic Power, owned jointly by the country’s electric utilities, is pushing for the reactor restart because the shutdown of its two nuclear plants poses a serious threat to its finances and management. Nuclear plants are Japan Atomic Power’s only source of revenue. A resumption of operations at its Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture is nowhere in sight because the NRA says it sits above an active fault. The utility needs to “demonstrate that it is making progress toward reactor resumption” to maintain financial backing from the utilities, a company official said. The Tokai plant was running when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. The plant lost its external power supply and needed extra time to achieve a state of cold shutdown because emergency power sources were partially crippled due to flooding from the tsunami. Its power generation turbine was also damaged in the disaster. The company plans to finish installing all safety measures, such as filter-attached venting equipment to reduce emissions of radioactive materials in the event of a reactor accident, by 2016. It estimates that total expenditures for safety measures will reach 78 billion yen ($770 million). On applying for the safety checks, the company said it improved the Tokai plant’s quake-resistant capability to withstand tremors with a maximum ground acceleration of 901 gals, 50 percent stronger than the maximum limit set before the 2011 disaster. The company also raised the projected maximum height of a tsunami that can hit the plant to 14.3 meters and constructed tidal walls at least 18 meters high. However, the plant’s old design makes it nearly impossible to replace its electric cables with fireproof ones, which are required under the NRA’s new safety standards for reactors. Japan Atomic Power plans to coat the cables with fireproof paint. But it remains to be seen if the NRA will regard the coating as capable of providing the same safety level of new fireproof cables. The company’s application is the second for a nuclear power plant damaged in the 2011 disaster. Tohoku Electric Power Co. applied for safety screenings at its Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture in December last year.