Slashdot Mirror
Japan To Restart Nuclear Power Tomorrow After Energy Prices Soar
An anonymous reader writes: After the Fukushima meltdown, all of Japan's nuclear power plants were shut down, the last in late 2013. This week the government plans on starting up reactor No.1 at the Sendai nuclear power plant. Energy prices have risen 30% since 2011, and it is hoped that the plant will soon be producing a surplus of electricity. Not everyone is happy about the plant restarting. This weekend, about 2,000 protesters marched around the plant and voiced their opposition. "Past arguments that nuclear plants were safe and nuclear energy was cheap were all shown to be lies," said writer Satoshi Kamata, one of the demonstration organizers. "Kyushu Electric is not qualified to resume operations because it has not completed an anti-quake structure to oversee a possible accident as well as a venting facility."
Gozilla breathes a sigh or relief... Nuclear power, sweet, lifegiving nuclear power!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It should've been obvious to everyone involved that shutting down all the nuclear reactors in Japan as a reaction to the Fukushima meltdown with absolutely no replacement strategy wasn't a sustainable option.
Japan's newest nukes are of the very latest design, and all of the plants being restarted have passed the latest safety tests, on a date that has been planned for years. No, this is not some panic move "in response to soaring energy prices" as the headline claims.
No, not really.
"The vast majority of plants under construction around the world, 47 in all, are considered Generation II reactor designs—the same 1970s vintage as Fukushima Daiichi, and without integrated passive safety systems."
Note the last phrase 'without integrated passive safety systems". That is the key. Fukashima required external power to shut itself down safely. Yes, TEPCO could have done things differently - site generators uphill, install a seawall that could actually contain a worst-case-scenario earthquake. Installed a hydrogen vent system. But it didn't. And TEPCO stated for years that the system was safe.
Until you can shut down a reactor all by itself, then it isn't safe.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!