by Will Davis
The
approach of the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake
of March 2011 finds nuclear energy in Japan at a crossroads. After the
quake and resulting tsunami, the nuclear plants in Japan which did not
shut down immediately eventually all had to shut down for their
required, scheduled outages. Political pressures, for the most part,
prevented any near term chance of any of them restarting, it seemed at
the time. When Tomari Unit 3 shut down in May, 2012, Japan found itself
with not one single operating nuclear power plant for the first time in
decades. Since that time, only two nuclear units have restarted – Ohi
Units 3 and 4 in July 2012. Other plants,
rumored to be “next” to start up, have still not started up, although they
may soon.
The question that springs to mind is naturally “when will the majority
of the plants be allowed to restart?” The more insightful question,
though, is “what will have to be done in order to allow any plant to
restart?” And how can we tell which will start first — is there any
clue present now? Yes, there is.
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/28/preparing-to-restart-tsunami-safety-measures-at-japanese-nuclear-power-stations/
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