Japan yesterday approved the full resumption of commercial operations of an atomic reactor for the first time since the March 11 quake and tsunami sparked the Fukushima nuclear accident.
Hokkaido Electric Power Co (HEPCO) restarted commercial operations at the Tomari plant’s No. 3 reactor shortly after receiving the official go-ahead from the central government, a company spokesman said.
Almost three-quarters of Japan’s 54 reactors are now offline, mostly for regular safety checks, and many host communities have been reluctant to approve their restarts as anti-nuclear sentiment has grown in the quake-prone nation.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said he would like to phase out nuclear power in the long term, but for now, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry wants to resume reactor operations amid a summer electricity crunch.
Atomic plants met about one-third of Japan’s domestic energy needs before the quake disaster, and business groups have warned that power shortages spell a serious threat to industry in the world’s third-biggest economy.
The reactor on the northern island of Hokkaido had officially been in a test phase, although it had been running for months and producing electricity at full capacity.
Hokkaido Governor Harumi Takahashi, after local debate on the plant’s safety, yesterday said she had “no objection” to the government declaring the safety test complete and allowing a return to full operations.
Once she formally relayed the message, the ministry issued a safety certificate allowing HEPCO to officially resume commercial operations.
A regular inspection of the Hokkaido reactor was launched in January, and the unit was restarted in a so-called adjustment operation on March 7, days before the earthquake. It has been operating ever since.
The ministry’s nuclear watchdog agency said additional safety tests that followed the quake were completed last week.
The emergency at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant started when Japan’s biggest quake on record hit the six-reactor facility and sent a massive tsunami barreling into it that claimed more than 20,000 lives along the coast.
The government and operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), yesterday reiterated the goal of bringing all reactors at the plant, which has been hit by meltdowns and explosions, to stable “cold shutdown” by January.
Emergency work has been hit by snags in a system to decontaminated massive amounts of radioactive water left from reactor cooling operations.
A government official told a press conference: “First of all, we need to expedite reprocessing of the contaminated water in order to achieve the cold shutdown,” where reactor temperatures fall below 100°C.
“There is basically no change to the roadmap in terms of the timing of achieving the objectives,” he said. “The government, together with TEPCO, will make further efforts to achieve the goal of bringing the reactors to a state of cold shutdown by mid-January.”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS