{"id":4326,"date":"2019-03-29T15:43:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T06:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4326"},"modified":"2019-04-01T12:41:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T03:41:59","slug":"news-watch-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4326","title":{"rendered":"News Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trial Conclusion and\nSentencing in Fukushima Nuclear Accident Criminal Suit Set for September 19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nTokyo District Court has set 19 September 2019 as the date for trial conclusion\nand sentencing of the three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Co.\n(TEPCO) who had received mandatory indictments for professional negligence in\nthe nuclear accident at TEPCO\u2019s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP).\nThat will be one year and eight months after the first hearing (see NIT No.\n179). At the March 12 hearing, lawyers for the three defendants, former\npresident Katsumata Tsunehisa and former vice-presidents Takekuro Ichiro and\nMuto Sakae continued to deny the foreseeability of the accident, asserting\ntheir innocence. The court-appointed attorney serving as prosecutor recommended\nthe maximum sentence under the law of five years imprisonment for each of the\nthree defendants on December 26, saying the accident had been foreseeable and\ncould have been prevented if measures had been taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nclass action lawsuits by evacuees seeking compensation for the accident, nine\ndistrict courts so far have handed down decisions recognizing the accident\u2019s\nforeseeability and ordering compensation. However, while two decisions by the\nChiba District Court recognized the accident\u2019s foreseeability, they did not go\nas far as saying that countermeasures could have prevented the accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JAPC Declares Intent\nto Restart Tokai No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Muramatsu Mamoru of Japan Atomic Power Co. (JAPC) met with Ibaraki Governor Oigawa Kazuhiko on February 22 to declare his company\u2019s intended goal of restarting the Tokai No. 2 NPP, which has been approved by Japan\u2019s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for 60 years of operation. The governor heard him out and said that to declare an intent to restart when the prefecture\u2019s committee on nuclear power safety measures had yet to reach a conclusion in its own examination showed contempt for the prefecture and left him \u201cfeeling inevitably a bit uneasy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Muramatsu also met on the same day with mayors\nYamada Osamu of Tokai Village and Takahashi Yasushi of Mito City, declaring the\nsame intent to both of them. Mayor Yamada said, \u201cI don\u2019t believe progress in\nconstruction [of safety countermeasures] has any bearing on the restart,\u201d effectively\ndenying JPAC\u2019s notion that the restart would be approved if the safety\ncountermeasure construction work moves ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Mayor Takahashi warned, \u201cUntil realistic\nevacuation plans are made and the citizens\u2019 understanding of them is gained,\nthere will be no restart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halting Restarts, Expediting\nDecommissioning <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nKansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) announced on February 4 that the completion\nof safety countermeasure construction for Takahama Units 1 and 2 and Mihama\nUnit 3 would be delayed. Construction at Takahama Unit 1 will not be completed\nuntil May 2020, and at Unit 2, construction will take until January 2021, which\nis about a nine-month delay in each case. A six-month delay at Mihama Unit 3 is\nalso expected, with completion in July 2020. Each of these reactors has been\napproved by the NRA for 60 years of operation. The Tokai No. 2 NPP, which has\nsimilarly been approved for 60 years of operation, has only reached the stage\nof declaration of intent to restart, as described above. The March 2 morning\nissue of the Asahi Shimbun reported that the cost of the safety countermeasures\nat the Tokai No. 2 NPP is expected to balloon to about 300 billion yen, nearly\ntwice former estimates. The article says that Japan\u2019s five electric power\ncompanies, who are JAPC\u2019s clients, will support this jointly, with TEPCO\nfooting a massive 190 billion yen worth. This situation is indeed crazy, but it\nhighlights just how unreasonable it is to have NPPs exceed 40 years of\noperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking\nof restarts, upon hearing the above news from KEPCO, The Electric Daily News\n(Denki Shimbun) headlined, \u201cZero Restarts in 2019\u201d in its February 8 issue. The\nrestarts of Takahama Unit 1 and Mihama Unit 3, scheduled to follow upon nine\nother restarts so far, have been held up, and no target dates have been set for\nthe restarts of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Units 6 and 7, which the NRA found to be in\ncompliance with Japan\u2019s new regulatory standards, or the Tokai No. 2 NPP. The\nElectric Daily News inferred that Onagawa Unit 2 and Shimane Unit 2, which it\ncalled \u201crelatively \u2018qualified,\u2019\u201d would have trouble restarting in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progress\nhas been made, on the other hand, toward decommissioning elsewhere. Kyushu\nElectric Power Co. decided on February 13 to decommission the Genkai Unit 2\nreactor. This makes the total number of applications filed for inspection of\npressurized water reactors for compliance with the new regulatory standards\nzero. As for boiling water reactors, in addition to the Fukushima Daini NPP,\nwhich is confirmed for decommissioning, there are eight other reactors for\nwhich no applications have been filed and may possibly be considered candidates\nfor decommissioning. The NRA concluded on February 22 that the ‘F-1 fault’\nrunning through the Tomari NPP site is undeniably active and that the activity\nof the ‘D-1 fault’ running through the Tsuruga NPP site was likewise\nundeniable, so decommissioning is inevitable in both cases. Nonetheless, they\ncontinue to be among Japan\u2019s NPPs applying for safety inspection in order to\nrestart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trial Conclusion and Sentencing in Fukushima Nuclear Accident Criminal Suit Set for September 19 The Tokyo District Court has set 19 September 2019 as the date for trial conclusion and sentencing of the three...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,6,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lawsuit","category-news","category-restart"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4353,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions\/4353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}