Japan Is NOT Trying To Restart Fukushima Daiichi

A factually incorrect article published at OilPrice.com (Update: they have corrected the erroneous claim about restarting Fukushima Daiichi but left a photo of Fukushima Daiichi on their somewhat corrected story a copy of the original version can be found here) has begun propagating across the internet. TEPCO is NOT trying to restart reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

“Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc.’s (TEPCO) plan to restart the defunct Fukushima nuclear power plant has an increased chance of being implemented after the prefecture governor, who has campaigned against its reopening, decided against running for re-election, according to a new report by Bloomberg.”

Wrong. The governor in question is in Niigata prefecture where TEPCO owns the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant. This press story here talks about the Niigata governor not running for re-election.

The OilPrice.com article goes on to further confuse this issue:

“The governor has long opposed plans to return the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant – the largest of its kind in the world – to production. Japanese laws do not require that utility companies obtain the approval of local leaders before commencing operations, but it is the expected practice.”

“TEPCO has applied to return reactors No. 6 and 7 to production at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. The company expects to boost profits by $97 million a month for each reactor it restarts, TEPCO spokesperson Tatsuhiro Yamagishi said earlier this week.”

Either the author didn’t check the article before publication to catch the error or doesn’t understand the disaster well enough to be writing about this issue. Fukushima Daiichi is in Fukushima prefecture, far away from Niigata prefecture. The two reactors at Fukushima Daiichi that didn’t suffer massive damage (units 5 and 6) are not slated for any proposed restart. Unit 5 is being used as a test bed to practice certain work tasks before doing them in the damaged units. Unit 6 is currently without a load of fuel in the reactor. There have been no plans to restart unit 6 and the prefecture government has said they would not allow that to take place.

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