Japan is set to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor for the first time in two years today, the operator said, as anti-atomic sentiment still runs high following the 2011 Fukushima crisis.
The reactor No. 1 at the Sendai nuclear plant, nearly 1,000km southwest of Tokyo, has been loaded with atomic fuel and its operator on Monday announced the reactor would be running by 10:30am today.
The 31-year-old reactor was expected to reach full operating capacity by “around 11:00pm,” a Kyushu Electric Power spokeswoman said.
The restart comes four-and-a-half years after a quake-sparked tsunami triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, prompting the shutdown of the country’s stable of reactors.
Japan, which once relied on nuclear power for a quarter of its electricity, restarted two reactors temporarily to feed the resource-poor country’s needs. However, they both went offline by September 2013, making the country completely nuclear-free for about two years.
The government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is keen to get them back up and running, as are the power companies that own them, fed up with having to make up lost generating capacity with expensive fossil fuels.
Safety officials have said that the reactors are going to operate under much tighter regulations than those that existed before Fukushima, the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
However, public sentiment remains largely against a return to nuclear power. Yesterday, about 400 protesters rallied in front of the Sendai plant, which is on the southern tip of Japan’s Kyushu island.
“I can never tolerate this,” one demonstrator told local television. “I cannot stand they are resuming the reactor when the Fukushima nuclear accident remains far from being solved.”
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