Not an all surprisingly, Greenpeace is not happy with the decision, says the reactors should remain shut

Dec 17, 2014 14:06 GMT  ·  By

Some time ago, in March 2011, Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant suffered a major meltdown. The facility pulled this little stunt after being hit by a mammoth tsunami birthed by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck the country.

Following this nuclear disaster, Japan's residents figured out that nuclear power was not all that safe and reliable as they believed it to be. Hence, high officials were left with no choice but to pull the plug on all the reactors operating across the country.

The thing is that, as of recently, Japan has been taking steps towards putting its nuclear facilities back to work producing energy. Recent news on the topic says that this December 17 the country's Nuclear Regulation Authority approved plans to restart two reactors.

Resurrecting a nuclear plant

Information shared with the public shows that the two nuclear reactors in question are part and parcel of the Takahama power plant, currently operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. The reactors, identified as 3 and 4, have been shut down for 34 and 41 months, respectively.

It's important to note that, before being allowed to restart these two nuclear reactor's in Japan's Fukui prefecture, Kansai Electric Power Co. will first have to implement a series of safety measures and prove that the installations are not dangerous to use.

Mind you, it's not that these reactors are being discriminated against by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority. Thus, all of the country's 48 reactors will first have to pass a series of inspections before their operators are granted permission to put them back to work.

Should things go according to plan, the Takahama nuclear plant's reactors 3 and 4 might be restarted sometime towards the end of 2015, maybe even later. This is because Kansai Electric Power Co. has to also ask regular folks how their feel about its plans before moving on to actually resurrecting them.

Greenpeace hopes the reactors will remain shut

Environmental group Greenpeace warns that, safety measures and inspections aside, the fact of the matter is that, should the Takahama nuclear power plant ever go haywire just like Fukushima did in 2011, thousands of people stand to be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

“Any severe accident at Takahama would be devastating for the people and the economy – there are no effective emergency plans existing that could protect the people in the region from radiation exposure,” the green-oriented organization explains in a statement.

Besides, the environmental group argues that, seeing how it has managed to make do without nuclear power for quite a while now, there is no need for Japan to go back to its old ways and restart its reactors. More so given the fact that many of them are too old to still be safe to operate.

“By embracing energy efficiency and renewables, the people of Japan have shown that nuclear power is unnecessary and belongs to the past,” Greenpeace says. “So why isn't the Nuclear Regulation Authority listening to them, the people they are supposed to serve, instead of doing the bidding of the nuclear industry?” it adds.

Japan readies to restart two of its nuclear reactors (5 Images)

In 2011, Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant suffered a meltdown
The meltdown occured following a tsunami and an earthquakeAfter this disaster, the country pulled the plug on all its nuclear reactors
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