Bravo - Japan Restarts A Second Nuclear Reactor

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 10/16/15

Dr. Conca reports that Japan restarted the second of its shuttered nuclear reactors, four and a half years after the impact of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunamis closed all of that country nuclear plants, and two months after the first reactor restart on the same site at Sendai. The first control rods in the reactor began withdrawal, and initial criticality was achieved about twelve hours later. The reactor should start transmitting power next week and resume full commercial operation next month. Owned and operated by Kyushu Electric Power Company, these two Sendai nuclear reactors, located about 600 miles southwest of Tokyo, were the first approved for restart under the upgraded nuclear standards put in place by the new Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan. All of their 48 commercial reactor units were shut down for safety checks and upgrades following the 2011 accident, and 25 plants have applied to be restarted under the new safety standards.The reactors at Sendai are M-type pressurized water reactors built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. They are about 15 years younger than TEPCO Fukushima boiling water reactors. At the same time as nuclear power is restarting in Japan, displaced residents from the Fukushima disaster are beginning to return to their homes. Continued studies show the lack of health effects from the nuclear disaster, and elderly people that were hastily evacuated have been harmed more from the evacuation than they could have been by any radiation. Japan has been importing huge amounts of oil, coal and natural gas to replace the lost nuclear power, at great expense and great harm to human health and the environment. Before 2011, nuclear power generated a third of the countys electricity, and fossil fuel about 60%. The two Sendai plants alone generated over 24 billion kWhs of electricity each year, the equivalent of about 8,000 large wind turbines. Japan has to import almost 90% of its energy and, like South Korea.