Antinuclear

Safety fears as Japan restarts nuclear reactor with MOX fuel (includes plutonium)

Third reactor restart spurs fears over shaky Kansai evacuation plans BY ERIC JOHNSTON STAFF WRITER , JAPAN TIMES, TAKAHAMA, FUKUI PREF 29 JAN 16 . – Kansai Electric Power Co. on Friday restarted its Takahama No. 3 reactor, the nation’s third unit to go back online under new safety regulations but the first to run on mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which contains plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel.

The restart has revived concerns, especially in neighboring Kansai, about the feasibility of plans to evacuate residents within 30 km of the plant in the event of an accident. It is also unclear where the spent fuel from the reactors will eventually be stored.

The restart was largely welcomed by local businesses and the town of Takahama, which rely on the subsidies and service industry trade that nuclear power brings…….

In the neighboring port city of Maizuru in Kyoto Prefecture, Mayor Ryozo Tatami said Kepco needs to make sure that restarting the reactor won’t lead to an accident. He also called on Tokyo to strengthen its disaster planning for such an event. The Takahama plant’s No. 4 reactor is expected to be restarted next month.

The Takahama plant lies on the Sea of Japan coast in southern Fukui Prefecture, with only a few access roads in and out of the area. About 180,000 people live in 12 towns and cities within 30 km of the site, in Fukui, Kyoto and Shiga.

While plans exist on paper to evacuate some Fukui residents to Hyogo, Kyoto, and Tokushima prefectures, many municipalities there don’t have detailed plans for receiving evacuees. This could possibly mean the only relief might come from Maizuru, which hosts the Japan Coast Guard and a Maritime Self-Defense Force base within 30 km of Takahama…….

the plans assume people will have the physical ability to flee. “There is no evacuation plan in place for the tens of thousands of people with special needs — inpatients and outpatients at hospitals and various facilities, those in day care, and those with handicaps living at home. When others can flee, there are no vehicles to transport these people nor medical care prepared at the evacuation site,” said Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the antinuclear group Green Action.

“Restart of the Takahama plant is a human rights injustice toward children and those with handicaps,” she said.

Kansai officials critical of the restart include Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada, who said Thursday he did not feel adequate local consent had been obtained due to concerns about evacuation issues. That same day, Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki said there was a lack of sufficient disaster planning.

On Friday, Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura added his voice to the opposition, saying the rules for disposing spent nuclear fuel — the lack of mid-term and final storage facilities — remained unclear. The city of Osaka owns about 9 percent of Kepco’s stocks.

Fukui hopes the two restarts will translate into more central government subsidies for hosting the plant. The prefecture received ¥30.6 billion in nuclear related subsidies in fiscal 2014. The latest available figures for Takahama show it received over ¥35 billion between 1974 and 2013……..

anti-nuclear activists say it is not just a matter of price, and that many people may choose to go with suppliers of electricity from renewable energy or other nonnuclear sources.

“The household electricity market will open up to more competition, especially from firms selling non-nuclear generated electricity. Customers will move away from Kepco if it tries to sell power from its nuclear plants, and the company won’t be able to survive,” said Kiyoko Kubo of Wakasa Net, an antinuclear group based near Takahama.http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/29/national/third-reactor-restart-spurs-fears-over-shaky-kansai-evacuation-plans/#.VqvMftJ97Gg

January 30, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized