A Japanese power firm began switching off the country’s last working reactor, leaving it without nuclear power just over a year after the world’s worst atomic accident in a quarter of a century.
As technicians close down the No. 3 unit at Tomari in Hokkaido, the debate over whether Japan needs nuclear power has been reignited, amid increasingly shrill warnings of summer power blackouts.
Hokkaido Electric Power, which runs the plant, said they started inserting control rods at 5pm that would halt the chain reaction and bring the reactor to “cold shutdown” sometime on Monday.
Photo: Reuters
“Power output started declining at the No. 3 unit,” said Tomohiko Shibuya, a Hokkaido Electric Power spokesman. “We have not heard of any trouble so far. Power generation there is scheduled to stop completely in about six hours.”
The shuttering will mark the first time since the 1970s that resource-poor and energy-hungry Japan has been without nuclear power, a technology that had provided a third of its electricity until meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March last year.
“A new [era in] Japan with no nuclear power has begun,” said Gyoshu Otsu, a 56-year-old monk who joined a protest against nuclear power in front of the industry ministry in Tokyo which supervises the nation’s power utilities.
Photo: AFP
“Generating nuclear power is like a criminal act as a lot of people are still suffering,” said Otsu, wearing white Buddhist clothes.
“If we allow the situation as it is now, another accident will occur,” he added.
Protest organiser Masao Kimura said: “It’s a symbolic day today. Now we can prove that we will be able to live without nuclear power.”
Separately, about 5,500 demonstrators staged a rally at a park near Tokyo Tower and later marched through central Tokyo carrying banners which read: “Sayonara [Goodbye], nuclear power.”
“We have to take action now, so that Fukushima should be the last nuclear accident not only in Japan, but all over the world,” Mizuho Fukushima, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said during the rally.
When power generation stopped late yesterday, Japan’s entire stable of 50 reactors would be offline, despite increasingly urgent calls from the power industry and bodies like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, who fear dire consequences for the world’s third-largest economy.
Last month, Kansai Electric Power, which supplies mid-western Japan, including the commercial hubs of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, said a hot summer could see supply fall nearly 20 percent short of demand.
Kyushu Electric Power, covering an area further west, and Hokkaido Electric Power also said they would struggle as air conditioning gets cranked up in Japan’s sweltering summer.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS