Anti-nuclear activists rejoiced, Kansai Electric Power Co. expressed some jitters and the government appeared unconcerned about the Fukui District Court’s injunction that prevents the utility from restarting two nuclear reactors.
Anti-nuclear activists rejoiced, Kansai Electric Power Co. expressed some jitters and the government appeared unconcerned about the Fukui District Court’s injunction that prevents the utility from restarting two nuclear reactors.
The court ruled April 14 that the new safety regulations of the Nuclear Regulation Authority are “too lenient” and would not guarantee the safety of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric’s Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The injunction took effect immediately.
It was a rare court decision that went against the government and electric power industry. The ruling doubted the efficacy of what the government has described as “the world’s toughest safety standards.”
The two reactors have cleared the key part of the NRA’s regulations and were effectively approved for a resumption of their operations.
Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer representing the nine plaintiffs who live in an area 50 to 100 kilometers from the Takahama plant, hailed the court’s decision as tantamount to banning the restarts of all nuclear reactors in Japan.
“It clearly described the inadequacies of the new safety standards and declared that the regulations are invalid,” he said.
Kansai Electric, which was seeking to restart the reactors in November, was not surprised by the decision, considering the judge in the case had made a similar decision last year.
The Osaka-based utility is expected to appeal the injunction at the district court and later at the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court if the initial motion is rejected. The procedure could take months to complete and affect the company’s profits.
“We expect the ruling to be overturned at a high court with a different judge in charge,” a senior Kansai Electric official said.
A senior official of the industry ministry, which oversees the nuclear power sector, was equally optimistic, saying, “We do not have to nervously react to one court ruling.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference on April 14 that the government will take a wait-and-see strategy toward the issue.
“Things are still in the stage of a court injunction,” he said. “So we will closely watch how the parties involved will react.”
But the top government spokesman emphasized that the Abe administration’s policy is to allow reactors to resume operations as long as they are cleared by the NRA.
Hitoshi Kometani, director of the general affairs division with the NRA secretariat, also dismissed the negative impact of the Fukui ruling, which called his organization’s standards subpar.
Komentani told reporters on April 14 that the NRA will proceed with its safety screenings for reactor restarts as usual.
Presiding Judge Hideaki Higuchi of the Fukui District Court took issue with safety features of the Takahama plant related to quake-resistance levels and the pools for storing spent nuclear fuel.
Utilities estimate the largest possible shock of an earthquake at their nuclear plants based on data on active seismic faults in the surrounding areas and earthquakes that have struck other parts of the nation.
Higuchi disputed the method of evaluating earthquake ground motions under the NRA regulations. Kansai Electric’s anti-seismic features at its nuclear facilities are based on this method.
The court noted that since 2005, five earthquakes have caused ground motions exceeding the maximum expected levels at four nuclear power plants, including the now-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Higuchi said Kansai Electric underestimated the possible ground motion level near the Takahama plant, thereby failing to significantly bolster its ability to withstand earthquakes.
Kansai Electric’s assessment of the plant’s safety was still based on “an assumption that a severe accident will rarely occur,” according to the court. The judge pointed to the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, on which the NRA regulations were based.
The court also noted that NRA regulations do not require pools of spent nuclear fuel to be protected by a sturdy building. In addition, the ruling criticized the NRA for allowing a moratorium on construction of anti-quake emergency response centers where plant operators can deal with severe accidents.
Higuchi concluded that despite the NRA’s approval of Kansai Electric’s safety reports on the two reactors, its regulations lack rationality and do not ensure safety.
He said that given the inadequacies of the NRA’s regulations, restarting the reactors at the Takahama plant could infringe on the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to live a peaceful life.
In a similar case and based on similar reasoning, Higuchi in May last year ordered a halt to operations of two reactors at Kansai Electric’s Oi nuclear power plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture. The case is still pending at a high court.
A court ruling is expected on April 22 in legal action seeking an injunction to stop the restarts of two reactors at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture.
The two reactors of Kyushu Electric have also been cleared by the NRA. They are expected to be the first in Japan to be restarted under the NRA’s safety regulations.
“If the court rules against the Sendai plant, similar to the Takahama plant, it could jolt the entire electric power industry,” a senior official with Kansai Electric said.
Before the Fukushima disaster, Kansai Electric depended on nuclear energy for half of its overall power generation, the highest ratio among Japanese utilities.
But with the continuing shutdown of all nuclear reactors in Japan, the company has projected a pretax loss for fiscal 2014, which ended March, for the fourth straight year.
Restarting the reactors was seen as indispensable in turning around the company’s business performance.
“We are at a loss over how long it will take us to overturn the court’s decision,” a senior Kansai Electric official said. “It could be six months, one year or even two years.”
Hitoshi Yoshioka, a professor of science history at Kyushu University, welcomed the court’s decision as “one that took into account citizens’ concerns.”
“If a nuclear accident takes place, it can cause tremendous damage,” said Yoshioka, who leads the think tank Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy. “The court took an approach that reactors should fulfill particularly stringent requirements. The court’s decision is clear-cut and persuasive.”
But Akihiro Sawa, head of the International Environmental Economic Institute, criticized the district court for setting the safety bar too high.
“The ruling calls for extremely vigorous regulations so that a severe accident would never ever occur,” he said. “But by global standards, safety regulations are crafted to minimize the risks after weighing the frequency of accidents and expected damage in a comprehensive manner.”
He said the ruling effectively set different standards in judiciary from those of the public administration and brought about confusion in the nuclear industry and the public.