22 Apr (NucNet): A court in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture has rejected a legal bid to prevent the restart of the Sendai nuclear power station on safety grounds, paving the way for the two reactors to be the first to resume commercial operation following post-Fukushima safety checks.
Today’s ruling by the Kagoshima District Court is seen as a boost for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants to restart nuclear reactors to help cut Japan’s reliance on expensive fossil fuel imports.
The ruling, in response to a legal challenge brought by residents on safety grounds, said that based on the latest scientific knowledge the court found nothing wrong in the regulations set by Japan’s nuclear regulator, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, and that evacuation plans were also reasonable.
Earlier this month the NRA began a pre-service inspection of Sendai-1, the first such inspection carried out under new laws to make sure reactors meet safety standards introduced following the Fukushima-Daiichi accident, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (Jaif) said.
All of Japan’s 48 operational reactors are offline while they undergo inspections to make sure they comply with the new safety standards.
The inspection is the last step in an approval process before the reactor can restart, Jaif said. According to the Japan Times, operator Kyushu Electric has set June 2015 as a target for restarting, making it the first scheduled start in the country since all reactors were shut down.
Both units at Sendai, in southwestern Japan, are 846-megawatt pressurised water reactors. Sendai-1 began commercial operation in 1984 and Sendai-2 in 1985.
Last week a court in Fukui prefecture in western Japan issued a temporary injunction against the restart of the Takahama-3 and -4 nuclear reactor units saying their safety had not been proved and criticising post-Fukushima safety standards as “lacking rationality”.
