13 Jul (NucNet): Japan’s Otsu District Court ruled yesterday that Kansai Electric Power Company’s (Kepco) Takahama-3 and -4 will remain offline, rejecting the utility’s appeal that a temporary injunction the court issued in March barring operation of the units be reversed. Kepco issued a statement following the decision saying it was “deplorable” that the court had not understood its safety case for the two 830-MW pressurised water reactors in Fukui Prefecture, southwest Japan. Kepco said it would review the details of the court’s decision and file an objection “without delay”. The court action began in January 2015 when 29 residents of Shiga Prefecture, to the south of Fukui, filed a petition to prevent operation of the two units claiming there were doubts about the station’s seismic standards and about new regulatory standards brought in following the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident. That petition was approved in 9 March 2016 and Kepco lodged an appeal soon afterwards. Kyushu Electric Power Company’s Sendai-1 and -2 are the only reactors operating in Japan out of a total of 42 commercially operable units. Most of the country’s reactors were shut immediately after the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi.
