Japan reactor gets go-ahead

TOKYO, July 23 (UPI) -- Two years after it shut down following an earthquake, the world's largest nuclear station has won approval from the Japanese government to commercially operate one of its seven reactors.

Since May 9 Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia's largest utility, has been carrying out a test run on Japan's Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant's unit 7 reactor. On Tuesday the governor of Niigata prefecture, Hirohiko Izumida, granted the final clearance needed for the 1.356-megawatt reactor's commercial operation, Bloomberg reported.

Located 5.5 miles from the epicenter of the 6.8-magnitude July 16, 2007, quake, the plant was ordered by the government to shut down all seven of its reactors following the disaster.

Tokyo Electric initially reported that the plant was not seriously damaged by the quake. Eventually it admitted that multiple radioactive leaks occurred, and that a damaged exhaust stack had discharged cobalt-60 and chromium-51. In addition, barrels containing low-level radioactive waste had tipped over.

In total, Tokyo Electric said the site suffered damage at some 50 different points.

Tokyo Electric has posted losses since the plant's closure two years ago, forcing it to switch to more expensive fossil fuels. In the first quarter of this year, Tokyo Electric's power sales to industrial users dropped 5.8 percent.

Noting that restarting one single reactor would help to cut Tokyo Electric's costs by some $642 million, its president, Masataka Shimizu, pledged that the company would return to profit this year.

"I hope that Kashiwazaki Kariwa will be able to restart operation soon," Toshihiro Nikai, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, said during a news conference last week.

"Given the current environmental issues and Japan's energy situation, the expectations for Kashiwazaki Kariwa's nuclear power generation are great," Nikai said.

On July 3 Tokyo Electric submitted a request to local authorities for approval to restart unit 6. Now that unit 7 will begin commercial operation, start-up tests for unit 6 are expected to begin.

Japan currently depends on 55 nuclear reactors for 30 percent of its electricity.

Yet the country's nuclear industry has been plagued by a number of accidents. In 2004 five workers were killed and six injured when a steam pipe ruptured at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan. In 1999 two people were killed and hundreds exposed to radioactive contamination at a reprocessing plant.

In early July the Japan Atomic Energy Commission postponed revision of the basic outline of the country's nuclear policy. No date has been set for the next revision, scheduled for 2010.