{"id":2683,"date":"2012-07-11T12:54:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T03:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnic.jp\/english\/wordpress\/?p=2683"},"modified":"2015-03-11T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T03:58:12","slug":"news-watch-149-julyaugust-2012-nuke-info-tokyo-no-149","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/?p=2683","title":{"rendered":"News Watch 149 July\/August 2012 Nuke Info Tokyo No. 149"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hitachi-GE to Accept Order for Lithuanian Nuclear Plant<\/a>
\n<\/b>Demands for Nuclear Plant Decommissioning: A Succession of Lawsuits <\/a>
\n<\/b>Around 7.5 Million Signatures for Nuclear Phase-out Submitted to Government and Diet<\/a>
\n<\/b>New Law Establishes Nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/a>
\n<\/b>Demand for a Citizens’ Referendum Ordinance Fails to Pass<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/a>Hitachi-GE to Accept Order for Lithuanian Nuclear PlantOn June 21, the Lithuanian Parliament approved a construction contract between its government and Hitachi-GE for an ABWR (1,384 MW).
\nConstruction plans for the Visaginas Nuclear Plant, close to the border of Latvia and Belarus, aim for completion in 2021.\u00a0 Latvia and Estonia will also receive electricity and are being requested to bear a part of the cost burden. It is planned to conclude the official contract after the investment amounts are approved.\u00a0 Hitachi, the nuclear plant’s operating company has also become an investor, and should the investment figure for the three countries decrease then Hitachi’s burden will increase.\u00a0 Some of the surrounding countries also have anti-construction movements, and thus this is a major risk for Hitachi.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n

\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/a>Demands for Nuclear Plant Decommissioning: A Succession of Lawsuits<\/b>Following the Fukushima nuclear accident, new lawsuits demanding nuclear plant decommissioning are being filed in various areas.
\nLawsuits filed this year include: Kyushu Electric’s Genkai Nuclear Plant on January 31, Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Plant on April 23, Kyushu Electric’s Sendai Nuclear Plant on May 30, and Hokuriku Electric’s Shika Nuclear Plant on June 26.\u00a0 It seems as though lawsuits are about to be filed against all of Japan’s nuclear plants.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/a>Around 7.5 Million Signatures for Nuclear Phase-out Submitted to Government and Diet<\/b>
\nEminent writers and critics such as Kenzaburo Oe have called for a petition named “Goodbye to Nuclear Power Plants”, and have obtained around 7.5 million signatures. The petition was submitted to both the Chairman of the Lower House on July 12th, and to the Chief Cabinet Secretary on July 15th.\u00a0 On July 12th, eighty Diet members participated in a report meeting in the Diet Member’s building to listen to Mr. Oe’s appeal.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/a>New Law Establishes Nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/b><\/p>\n

In NIT Issue 147, News Watch reported that a bill for restructuring Japan\u2019s nuclear regulatory organizations had been submitted to the Diet.\u00a0 In the bill, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency was to be created under the Ministry of the Environment, but the LDP and Komeito parties submitted a counterproposal stating that there should be a Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The ruling DPJ party met the opposition parties halfway and withdrew its first plan. The three parties submitted to the Diet a revised plan based on a new agreement, which was enacted on June 20.\u00a0 Accompanying this enactment, the provision “contribute to Japan’s national security” was added to the three laws, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Establishment Act, the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law and the Basic Law on Atomic Energy, raising concerns that this may lead to the abrogation of the principle of peaceful use of nuclear power.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n

\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n<\/a>Demand for a Citizens’ Referendum Ordinance Fails to Pass<\/b>The demand in Osaka City and the Tokyo metropolis for a citizens’ referendum ordinance for a vote on the restart of nuclear plants was rejected both in the Osaka Assembly on March 27 and in the Tokyo Assembly on June 20.\u00a0 At the same time, movements with a similar claim have started in Shizuoka and Niigata Prefectures.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n
\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hitachi-GE to Accept Order for Lithuanian Nuclear Plant Demands for Nuclear Plant Decommissioning: A Succession of Lawsuits Around 7.5 Million Signatures for Nuclear Phase-out Submitted to Government and Diet New Law Establishes Nuclear Regulatory...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2685,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2683\/revisions\/2685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}