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Radiation and human exposure reached beyond critical levels in the 2011 meltdown.
Radiation and human exposure reached beyond critical levels in the 2011 meltdown.
The country's Nuclear Regulation Authority had approved the restart of the reactors at the Takahama plant in Fukui prefecture, but in a ruling on Tuesday judges sided with residents who had sought an injunction against the facility's operator, Kansai Electric Power (Kepco).
The residents had argued that nuclear officials had underestimated the plant's vulnerability to powerful earthquakes of the kind that triggered the Fukushima disaster. They added that the reactors did not meet proper safety standards and that evacuation contingencies were inadequate.
With the nuclear watchdog having approved the restart of the ageing Takahama reactors, as well as two other reactors at the Sendai nuclear power plant in south-western Japan, anxious residents see the courts as their last chance to block the restarts.
The last of Japan's 48 functioning nuclear reactors went offline in September 2013 in response to the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Comment: There are differences between acceptance of nuclear power to offset rising energy needs, nuclear power that is compromised due to degraded systems and damage causing safety concerns, and consumer nuclear power as a cover for stockpiling enriched fuel for weapons. The real question is why a country that is so prone to earthquakes (natural and manmade) would and could even consider this form of energy production! The PAC-RIM is currently very active and tectonic plates are shifting and compensating on a daily basis - not a satisfactory scenario for restarting this insanity, especially if Fukushima Daiichi's destruction was, as some suspect, a message.