Kansai Electric Power Company plans to restart on Friday one reactor at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture along the Sea of Japan coast.
The plant will be the 2nd one to resume operation since all nuclear stations in Japan went offline following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011.
The utility informed Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority on Monday of the plan to restart Takahama No.3 reactor.
The No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the plant last February cleared the government’s stricter regulations introduced after the disaster. In December, the host town of Takahama and Fukui Prefecture agreed to the restarts.
The No. 3 reactor is loaded with 157 fuel assemblies and is now undergoing inspections. If nothing wrong is found, the utility will activate the reactor as early as Friday afternoon.
The fuel includes 24 units of MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium extracted from spent fuel and uranium. MOX fuel is regarded as part of Japan’s fuel recycling system. The No.3 reactor was using it before getting offline 3 years and 11 months ago.
Kansai Electric Power also plans to load fuel in the Takahama No. 4 reactor on Sunday to ready for its planned restart end of February.
A court in Fukui lifted an injunction that was blocking the restart of the plant’s 2 reactors last December.
Takahama plant follows Sendai nuclear plant in the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima that started commercial operation in September of last year.
Source and image: NHK
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