FUKUI —
The Fukui District Court on Tuesday issued an injunction to halt the restart of Kansai Electric Power’s Takahama No. 3 and No. 4 nuclear reactors, plaintiffs said on Tuesday, siding with local residents worried about the safety of the plant.
The order by the Fukui District Court comes as the government seeks to restart Japan’s idled nuclear plants four years after the Fukushima disaster. But the majority of the public remains opposed to restarting reactors due to safety fears.
The Takahama reactors, on the coast of Fukui Prefecture in western Japan, have met safety regulations set by Japan’s nuclear regulator and were expected to be restarted some time this year.
The ruling will have ramifications for attempts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strong proponent of nuclear energy, to revive the world’s third-biggest economy after two decades of anemic growth.
The panel of judges who handed down the ruling was headed by Justice Hideaki Higuchi, who is regarded as a maverick in the highly conservative judiciary. He had already ruled against the restart of another Kansai Electric plant in May last year.
Legal efforts by Kansai Electric to have Higuchi and the two other judges on the panel removed failed last week, when a high court rejected an appeal to overturn a lower court’s dismissal of a move to unseat them.
The two Takahama reactors, with a capacity of 870-megawatts each, received the first approvals in a three-step process. Kansai Electric had planed to restart them later this year.
Tuesday’s ruling against the reactors could keep the restart tied up in years of litigation as Kansai Electric is expected to appeal the court’s decision but the appeals process takes time. It may also affect the outcome of other rulings in a country that was the third-biggest user of nuclear energy before Fukushima.
Kansai Electric, Japan’s most nuclear dependent utility before Fukushima, is forecasting an annual loss of 161 billion yen because of the cost of burning fossil fuels for power generation, bringing losses since Fukushima to 744 billion yen.
The company, which raised prices by 14% this month for its corporate customers, serves Japan’s second most important economic region, where companies including Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp are headquartered.
The country’s biggest business lobby Keidanren is a strong supporter of a return to nuclear power and wants power bills cut, but Abe needs to tread carefully because opinions polls show consistent public opposition to nuclear power.
Japan’s judiciary - which typically sided with power companies before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster - may be shifting its attitude.
In ruling against Kansai Electric’s Oi plant last year, Higuchi delivered a scathing critique of the risk management of Japan’s nuclear industry.
Judges are now considering injunctions that could halt the restarts and indefinitely extend the countrywide shutdown of Japan’s 43 operable reactors that followed Fukushima.
Another court ruling is expected next week for two other reactors in Sendai, Kyushu, though legal experts believe that case may go in favor of the local utility.
Slowing down restarts would also further complicate Abe’s plan to reduce imports of more expensive thermal fuels by reinstating nuclear power, which previously supplied nearly a third of Japan’s energy.
Japan has been importing record amounts of liquefied natural gas and coal to fill the gap for power generation, pushing the country into a record deficits.
Imports of LNG and coal are expected to stay high unless Japan moves to start more than a few reactors, analysts have said.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.
0 Response to "National › Court issues injunction to halt restart of Takahama reactors"
Post a Comment