Japan: Ban on restarting 2 nuclear reactors upheld

TOKYO (AA) – A Japanese district court has upheld an injunction against restarting two nuclear reactors in a coastal western city even though the units have cleared safety standards introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The Otsu District Court rejected Friday an appeal by the Kansai Electric Power Co. to have the injunction -- filed by residents and approved in March -- lifted on the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at their Takahama power plant in Fukui prefecture.

Local news agency Kyodo cited the decision as saying that the court "cannot conclude that [the reactors] are safe, merely because they have met new regulatory standards on nuclear power plants".

"Kansai Electric should at least explain how the regulations on operation and designs of nuclear power plants were toughened and how it responded to them," it said.

Kansai Electric Power Co. had sought to suspend the injunction, insisting that its safety measures were “thoroughly proven” and the court's ruling in March was “scientifically and technologically groundless”.

It said that keeping the reactivated reactors idle cost the utility 300 million yen ($2.88 million) in daily losses.

Friday’s decision is the latest setback to the government’s drive to revive nuclear energy despite reservations among the public.

Japan began shutting its 48 nuclear power plants after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 damaged four reactors in Fukushima, melting the cores in three of them and forcing thousands of people to leave their homes, most of whom have been able to return.

Since then, Japan has reformed its safety rules to create a new regulatory body tasked with insuring that reactors that do come back on line comply with new safety restrictions gleaned from what has been learned from the disaster.

All reactors had remained offline since 2013 until August 2015, when the Sendai-1 reactor was restarted in the city of Satsumasendai, Kagoshima prefecture.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that roughly 60 percent of Japanese oppose a return to nuclear power production, even though the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe considers nuclear power’s revival as critical to the economy.

Abe’s government has said it is aiming to have 20-22 percent of Japan's total electricity supply generated from nuclear power in 2030 as part of efforts to lower electricity prices and shore up the economy.

Prior to the Fukushima crisis, nuclear power contributed 30 percent.