The world’s largest nuclear power plant has been shut down just hours after it was due to start up after an alarm sounded during a reactor start-up, the BBC reports.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) spokesman Takashi Kobayashi said the alarm had sounded during a reactor start-up procedure at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Tokyo, but the reactor was stable.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s sixth reactor was restarted on the 21st of January, the first nuclear power plant to restart since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. At that time, Japan shut down all 54 reactors in the country after a magnitude-9 earthquake triggered a meltdown at the plant, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. More than 150,000 people were forced to leave their homes after the Fukushima nuclear power plant leaked radiation. Despite the fact that it is now considered safe to return, many have not done so.
After the sixth reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was shut down on the 22nd of January, Kobayashi said that no increased radiation levels were observed. The reactor was scheduled to start up on the 20th of January, but this was postponed due to a technical failure. The reactor is scheduled to start generating electricity in February. Kobayashi said that
Tepco is investigating the causes of the incident, and did not say when the plant could stop operating.
The seventh reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is not scheduled to start up before 2030, while the other five could be dismantled. This means that the power of the plant will be much lower than it used to be, when all seven reactors were operating. The sixth reactor was allowed to start up despite local concerns about safety and several protests at both Tepco and the city hall.
Japan was one of the first countries to use nuclear power, and by 2011, 30% of the country’s electricity was generated by nuclear power plants. At the time, it was planned that nuclear reactions would provide half of the country’s electricity by 2030. After the Fukushima disaster, Japan has spent the past decade trying to restart its nuclear power plants, as part of a plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. As of 2015, 15 of the 33 reactors in operation had been restarted.
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