E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Kyodo / Reuters
Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi nuclear power plant No. 3 unit, second from left, is seen in Ohi, Fukui prefecture on Sunday.
TOKYO - Japan ended two months without nuclear power on Thursday when the No. 3 unit at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant became the first reactor to resume supplying electricity to the grid since a nationwide safety shutdown after the Fukushima disaster.
Japan's last working reactor was idled in early May, leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970.The rest of the 50 reactors had already been halted for maintenance and safety checks to see if they could withstand an earthquake and tsunami similar to the disaster that devastated Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011, causing the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.
The government approved the restart of the No. 3 and No.4 Ohi units in western Japan to avoid a possible summer power crunch. But public safety concerns over nuclear power remain deep, with surveys showing about 70 percent of voters want the country to ditch nuclear eventually.
A panel appointed by parliament to probe the causes of the Fukushima disaster and assess problems with the often-chaotic response, is to issue a final report later on Thursday.
Japan approves reactor restarts, more seen
Kansai Electric, Japan's second biggest utility, said it began generating power from the 1,180-megawatt No.3 Ohi reactor at 5 percent of capacity at 7 a.m. on Thursday (6 p.m. EDT on Wednesday) as scheduled, four days after the unit was restarted.
The No. 3 unit is expected to reach full-capacity output around July 9-10. Its sister unit, the 1,180-MW No.4 Ohi reactor, is scheduled to resume operations between July 18-20, start power output from July 21-25 and reach full-capacity generation from July 25-30, a company spokesman said.
Cleanup continues after last year's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. The government is still trying to establish its role in TEPCO and people in Tokyo, who felt the tremors, are concerned the c...
Restarting the two reactors will help reduce fossil fuel consumption since utilities have been meeting the power gap created by the shutdown of all 50 reactors, with capacity of 46,148 MW, by firing up plants using costly fuel, especially gas and oil.
Before the Fukushima crisis, Japan relied on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity and was the world's third-biggest user after the United States and France.
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Syrian groups come to blows while seeking peace
- 'Catastrophe': Journalist behind the lines in Syria sees no end to war
- From soft power to drone attacks: What the world thinks of US
- Kids cross border alone, fleeing drugs and gangs
- East London: From gangland haven to Olympic showcase
Follow World News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
What about clean coal? lol
The solution is geothermal energy. Yes, dig a deep hole, fill it with water and run the turbines with the steam that boils up. Wasteful. Use a different media BESIDES water! Ammonia has a MUCH lower boiling point! Use that and a shallower, cheaper hole! Think!
road kill: that makes sense. but it is not going to happen
Clean coal is an oxymoron.
If they really want to be out of the dark, they don't really have a choice. Japan doesn't have the natural resources many nations around the world have.
Here in Tokyo today I saw someone overcome by the heat. Though it's only about 30, it's humid and the person in question seemed to be in his 70s or 80s. He said he'd be OK, but I hope he'll have access to air conditioning some times when it hits high summer. Only in my 50s, I can bear the heat, but great numbers who are older or in not the best shape cannot.
Yes, but on Japanese TV they're saying that we should avoid using the air conditioning to reduce shock when we go outside. I said "screw that!" I bought a 12,000yen 50cm fan to circulate air along with the air conditioner!!!
At least I now feel comfortable at 26'c instead of 22'c... so maybe I'm saving money?
Very few countries will be able to meet energy requirements without using nuclear power plants as one of the sources for electrical energy.
The will of the people in Japan shut down all the nuclear plants, but the reality of their energy dependence reinstated the nuclear status-quo. The only answer to this problem in the near future is wind power and solar. These technology will improve and Japan can be a leader in this industry, because of their needs. Like smaller more efficient automobiles, every building will have solar panels and a wind turbine. The benefit of an island nation is plentiful off shore winds.
Yeah well until those technologies get there and are releialbe (you know sun dosen't always shine espeically in the winter and the wind dosen't always blow) there stuck with nuclear.
That is a tragedy! the Earth Quake from the last year put too much pollution in the water and air, harming all our precious resources. It is now radioactive site that will remain that way for years to come. Chernobyl many decades later is still dealing with issues. They should be looking a green resources as an energy source. Nuclear wastes cannot be destroyed and remain radioactive for thousands of years.
Read more: Nuclear Energy Cons | eHow.com #ixzz1zicDL26n
Yeah and what do you do in the mean time for energy, people have got to live it's summer people need air condioners especailly older people and if your going to get any economic recovery your going to need energy to rebuild the economy.
Well way to go Japan in realizing that you need energy to survive and there is no 100% safe energy. I know a lot of people are nervous and they have a right to be but you have to understand what caused last years nuclear metldown wasen't some small earthquake that happens frequenlty. It is probably a once in a millenium event the whole nation was thrown several feet, followed by a tsunami nothing could surivvie that and I think the Japanese government did the best they could to deal with the disaster.
For a lot of the liberals on this post complaning about Japan getting nuclear energy back online I got a question for you why is it wrong for them to have it but ok for Iran who has said they wanted to take out Isreal and the United States to have it.
Good point.
Good Point. What a lot of people don't see here is Japan is an island and has a large populance. Islands are inhibited as to what their options are. We have lots of rivers and lots of Dams to produce power. Sure we use coal power and if I under stand it correctly we will be doing away with our reactors. Our population is still on the incline and we will be needing more power in the future. So is Japan, they are in the same boat we are. Who knows, maybe in the future we may have to reintroduce Reactor Power.
The issue wasn't the nuclear plants but the location of the generators at sea level. It was poor planning when they should have been placed up on the hill overlooking the plant.
we did not always have air conditioning or nukes .. NO NUKES go green
Or penacillin or any advancements. You really advocate going back to dirt floors. Green is the new red.
Just-I really like my AC- And by the way, you are posting on a blog that requires electricity to run it. Your PC is powered as well. i am sure you are on face book and use Google- have you ever seen the power consumption used by your social network providers? I would suggest you and your fellow tree huggers start saving the planet right now by stop using your PC, I Pod, TV, Cell phone and anything else that use electricity. Your killing us all!
Tree Hugger or other, it's OK so long as one realises that there are limits on both sides. the way we do thing now is we have inventions that'll work for both sides. Be frugal and be paitiant, I'm willing to bet there is an invention sitting on the shelf right now that appeases both, but we are just waiting for the technoligy to use it.
It's nice to see they have power but I still won't eat seafood from Japan. Seams the eastern Pacific is contaminated with radioactive seafood. And since fish migrate the best thing to do when going shopping is to really examine seafood. Not all fish glow in the dark naturally.
Thorium is the answer.
I prefer valium myself. LOL
Good for them. They are THE most cautious about using nuclear power. IF Fukushima was not shoreline based, this would have not happened. NO ONE expected a tidal wave after the earthquake.
When will the world dump this flawed LWR technology, which gives so much ammunition to the anti-nuke brigade and is so distrusted by the general public?
Here in the UK we have a great opportunity to get into molten salt reactor technology, by reproducing a scaled up version of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE), in order to burn our plutonium stockpile. Why give the cash to GEC Hitachi for their PRISM reactor, when we can have a British-Made reactor to do the same job.
We have the design/technological expertise and the manufacturing capacity to make these reactors, which are no more than 'glorified' hot-salt chemical plants. Does our nuclear industry have to sit on the side lines and watch PWRs being 'imported'?
Google lftrsuk to get behind this technology.
Like I said earlier, Island have limited options and take whatever means neccessary. Right now it is hard to get away from the redioactive part of it but I feel that there will be cleaner options in the future. Today we do what we must do. Just trying to look at thing from a logical view point and condeming no one.
you really have to wonder about the peeps they sent into the radioactive hell feel about this
who now will get cancer because they were exposed to that mess
and next time around im sure it will be a melt down
but hey if one of the plants on the quake zone melts down we in the usa have a good couple of weeks to live
what a deal
@Keith, you worry to much. I remember when we all had a luminus watch the hands and numbers were covered with a radiactive material, paint that glowed in the dark after being exposed to light. No more people than normal for the days died from more Cancer nor did I hear of anyone dying from radiation poisoning. Also I never saw anyone walking around with a strange green glowing skin. You probably are walking around with more Radiation in you than you think. I've had a couple of radioactive toddies and lots of X-rays and owned several luminus watches. believe it or not I still don't glow in the dark.