Japan’s last operating reactor was taken offline Saturday, as public distrust created by last year’s nuclear disaster forced the nation to at least temporarily do without atomic power for the first time in 42 years.
The reactor, at the Tomari plant on the northern island of Hokkaido, was shut down for legally mandated maintenance, said its operator, Hokkaido Electric. As Japan’s 50 functional commercial reactors have been shut down one by one for maintenance, none have been restarted because of safety concerns since last year’s Fukushima disaster.
Desperate to avert possible power shortages this summer, the government has tried to convince the public to allow some of the reactors to be restarted. It has conducted simulated stress tests to show whether reactors can withstand the sort of immense earthquake and tsunami that knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
However, the public has not accepted the tests, which were conducted largely behind closed doors. A number of critics have demanded more sweeping changes, like the creation of a more independent nuclear regulatory agency.
, like the creation of a more independent nuclear regulatory agency. THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE TO CREAT A REGULATORY AGENCY..
Nobody was killed at Fukushima. The 19,000 deaths were from Mother Nature’s tsunami. Reason was swept away too.
I’m afraid I don’t “understand”. WHO…is the “Public”? Communist agitators? You NEED LESS govt. control, not more, OF THE REACTORS, themselves. To allow refurbishment, may take MUCH MORE GOVT.! Now that they are down, it the PERFECT time to re-engineer them to a liquid Floride-Thorium Reactor, which will ALSO decrease the spent-fuel-rods in the holding ponds. Japan doesn’t need Nuclear weapons, so it should move to Thorium, as should the Iranians, because one can produce weapons uranium from a Thorium operation, but it is MUCH, MUCH harder,–so difficult, it’s not worth it, to do it. WE(USA) have the second largest World reserves of Thorium (NOT…that the EPA would LET us mine it, the EPA, imo, is too STUPID & CROOKED, imo, to ALLOW the USA to provide thorium to Japan. GREAT POWER can be gained from Thorium (LFTRs), but it is NOT USED, HERE, because when we looked at what to use, we WANTED to have material to make nuclear weapons with, so that meant using uranium, NOT Thorium. THORIUM will NEVER lead to a melt-down, so if Japan went to Thorium, it would NEVER have a “melt-down” again. I don’t have Commie-fueled prejudice, but I’ll tell Japan right now. “Japan, DO NOT USE uranium in your reactors, anymore! CONVERT to LFTRs and the USA will provide the Thorium…or Red China can. Any Commies preventing Conversion to LFTRs/Thorium should simply be ARRESTED, and imprisoned in temporary jtent-city jails, LIKE Joseph Apaio’s in Maricopa Co., Phoenix-area, Arizona, USA. If this involves tens of thousands, so be it, Japan MUST have energy, to survive–there’ll be NO WORK without electricity, and Japan supports its-self by making goods for export. If the Commies are mustering the “Public” against LFTR-construction/refurbishment to re-fuel with Thorium, then this constitutes an “attack”on Japan by “Socio-fascist GANGSTERS”, and the JDF must be called-out to imprison (temporarily) the Commie-led “public”(who are probably out-of-work agitators, not Japanese home-owners/apartment dwellers). Japan could LEAD the WORLD in Thorium-powered electric generation, inspiring other nations to follow the Noble, brilliant, Japanese. They MUST “repress” their Greens, or FALL as a nation (–what the Greens WANT!).
There was no nuclear disaster, so I don’t understand what everyone is on about. Misinformation is the real fear here.
Watch the Japanese economy free fall into oblivion as they make one dumb decision after the other based on merit less fear-mongering.
The cries for a more independent nuclear regulatory agency is like the cry of the banshee: shrill, deafening and soul-destroying, but in the end is just a lot of hot air.