The mayor of a central Japan city that hosts part of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant has indicated his willingness to greenlight the restart of its suspended reactors.
“We have reached a stage where we can accept a possible request for reactivation,” Masahiro Sakurai, the mayor of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, said during a meeting Thursday with Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the plant’s operator.
At their meeting in the city, Kobayakawa formally told the mayor of Tepco’s plan to decide on a possible decommissioning of several among the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 1 to No. 5 reactors within two years after the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors are brought back online.
The company’s previous plans involved taking such steps within five years of the restart of the two reactors.
Additionally, Kobayakawa said that Tepco will explain to the city how it will determine the composition of power supply, as well as details of the possible decommissioning of reactors, once the resumption of operations at the No. 7 reactor is within sight.
Safety inspections ahead of reactivation were completed at the No. 7 reactor in June. The focus is now on whether Tepco will be able to secure the consent of local governments for its restart.
“Tepco gave a sincere response,” Sakurai said at a news conference following the meeting. “Whether (reactors) can be reactivated is up to Niigata Prefecture.”
Kobayakawa said that Tepco has yet to decide which reactors to decommission within the newly proposed two-year window.
Source: Japan Times
