The electric company manages 2023 as an approximate date to resurrect the unit.
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| General view of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. / EFE |
The local governor of Shimane (Japan), Tatsuya Maruyama, announced this Thursday the decision to reactivate nuclear power during the session of the regional assembly. The enabled reactors could be the first to come online in Japan's western prefecture since the Fukushima plant disaster.
To date, the system that has enjoyed the approval of the Japanese country to resume nuclear energy has been the pressurized water system (PWR). Unlike the rest, the Shimane mechanism is based on boiling water reactors, like those of the accident site in 2011.
The government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, has acted as such, showing caution and, at the same time, being willing to resume energy activity. "We must respect the decisions of the nuclear regulatory authority as long as the regulations are exceeded."
Start-up in the medium term
The second of the three units of the Shimane nuclear plant, owned by the electricity company Chugoku Electric Power, will have to wait until 2023, under an ambitious aspiration, to operate its activities. At the moment, the facility's No. 3 reactor is in a state of evaluation and No. 1 will be decommissioned, according to the Federation of Electric Companies of Japan.
The measure taken by the Government comes two days after a court denied the viability of an atomic plant in Hokkaido. Likewise, the plans to reactivate the Oi and Tokai reactors 3 and 4 were also stopped by judicial means in recent years.
Escape from Russian dependency
Matsuno took advantage of the press conference to refer to the rise in fuel prices in a context of limited supply so that nuclear energy seems "important" to mitigate external dependence. Since the natural disasters that triggered the nuclear blackout, Japan has struggled to regulate its power.