TEPCO to decommission Fukushima-Daini nuclear power plant

• 4 years ago (2019-07-25)
• David Flin

Asia 846 Nuclear 639

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Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced that it will decommission its Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant. The plant is located south of the larger Fukushima Daiichi plant, site of a meltdown in March 2011. The four reactors at Daini automatically shut down after the earthquake, reaching cold shutdown two days later. The reactors have not been restarted since then.

If the four reactors at Fukushima Daini are permanently closed, that would mean that 21 reactors in total in Japan are scheduled for decommissioning. Prior to the 2011 disaster, there were 54 operating reactors in Japan. All Japan’s reactors were stopped after the meltdown, and only eight have since been restarted, although some additional units are proceeding with relicensing.

The closure of the Fukushima Daini plant would leave TEPCO with just the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa station, with eight reactors. TEPCO wants to restart at least two reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa if it can get the units relicensed. There is, however, strong local opposition to this.