Japanese parliament passes revised nuclear reactors law

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill to grant mandate to the country’s nuclear reactors to run beyond 60 years of their operations.

The move is aimed at “cutting carbon emissions while ensuring an adequate national energy supply,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

Tokyo has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Japan had implemented stricter regulations which limited operations of a nuclear reactor to 40 years but could be extended to 60 years after proper review.

“The law on power sources for green transformation and decarbonization amends five laws associated with energy at once, including the electricity business law, under which the life span of reactors will be regulated,” the report said.

When the bill is enacted as law, Japan’s “nuclear reactors may be granted additional operating years in effect as their offline periods will not be counted against their total service time provided the periods are due to reasons beyond a utility's control, such as safety reviews needed for a restart and court-ordered suspensions.”

Approval of extension in operations time period will be granted by Japan’s industry minister.

The revised rules mandate Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to review conditions of the reactors every 10 years after they attain an age of 30 years in operations.

“These (old) reactors will not become operable unless they pass the NRA’s reviews within every 10 years and obtain approvals,” Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura had said a day earlier.