Tokyo, 4 October 2017 - Japan’s nuclear regulator today granted
preliminary safety approval for two Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant despite widespread public
opposition. These are the first TEPCO reactors to receive approval since the
nuclear disaster at the TEPCO operated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant.
“The NRA’s decision to grant approval to TEPCO’s reactors is
reckless. It’s the same disregard for nuclear risks that resulted in TEPCO’s
2011 triple reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi site,” said Shaun Burnie,
Senior Nuclear Specialist with of Greenpeace Germany. “Approving the safety of
reactors at the world’s largest nuclear plant, when it is at extreme risk from
major earthquakes completely exposes the weakness of Japan’s nuclear regulator,”
said Burnie.
Twenty-three seismic fault lines run through the TEPCO site,
located in Niigata prefecture. The utility admitted earlier this year that due
to the soft sand under the site, areas of the plant are vulnerable to soil
liquefaction.[1]
Despite the NRA decision to grant TEPCO this preliminary
safety approval, there is no prospect for the Kashiwazaki Kariwa 6 and 7
reactors to restart in the near future. Such a restart is opposed by the Niigata
Governor and a majority of the citizens of the prefecture. The Governor launched
a new technical investigation into the causes and impact of the Fukushima
Daiichi disaster this summer. He will not decide on whether to approve restart
until the assessment is completed in 2020.
In addition, a citizen-led
lawsuit against the restart of the Kashiwazaki reactors is currently underway in
the Niigata courts, centered on the seismic risks at the site.[2]
“This
attempt to restart reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa site is a last-ditch
effort to save TEPCO’s nuclear business. Powerful political and public
opposition remains and means that these reactors will not restart for at least
the next several years. TEPCO should abandon its futile efforts to restart
seismically vulnerable reactors and instead focus on dealing with the ongoing
nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi,” said Hisayo Takada, Energy Project Lead of
Greenpeace Japan.
In July, the NRA had warned TEPCO that it would not
approve a safety review for the two reactors unless the utility takes a more
active and responsible approach to the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi.
This decision to grant preliminary approval flies in the face of that warning
and exposes the regulator as a paper tiger. Since July 2017, TEPCO has made no
major progress at the crippled Fukushima site. It still does not know where
hundreds of tonnes of molten reactor fuel is located, continues to have a
radioactive water crisis at the site, and has no credible plan for
decommissioning.
Meanwhile, the costs for its ongoing nuclear disaster at
Fukushima Daiichi continue to climb. An estimate from a Tokyo economics think
tank earlier this year warned that the cost of decommissioning the Fukushima
Daiichi plant, plus decontamination and compensation, could range between 50-70
trillion yen (US$449-628 billion).[3]
Currently there are four reactors
operating in Japan.
[ENDS]
Notes to editors:
[1] For
background analysis of the technical, financial, and political obstacles to
operating the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant see “
TEPCO’S
Atomic Illusion”, June 2017, Greenpeace Japan
[2] The so-called
Irikura/Miyake method used by the NRA underestimates deformation when using
estimated fault area values. Professor Kunihiko Shimazaki, the only seismologist
to have been an NRA commissioner during his period in office from 2012-2014,
testified in a 2017 court case against restart of the Ohi reactors in Fukui
prefecture that the formulas used by the regulator underestimates the potential
seismic impact by factor of 3.5. The NRA used the same flawed formula at the
Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant.
[3] “
Accident Cleanup Costs May
Rise to ¥50-70 Trillion - It’s Time to Examine legal liquidation of TEPCO -
Higher Transparency is Needed for the Reasons to Maintaining Nuclear
Power”.
Contacts:
Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist,
Greenpeace Germany,
sbu...@greenpeace.org, +81
(0)80-3694-2843 (Currently based in Japan)
Chisato Jono, Communications
Officer, Greenpeace Japan,
chisat...@greenpeace.org, +81
(0) 80-6558-4446
Greenpeace International Press Desk,
pressd...@greenpeace.org, +31
(0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)
--
Tristan Tremschnig
Communications Hub Manager | Asia
Pacific