News Digest

Japan’s Sendai nuclear plant wins regional approval for restart

Regional authorities in Japan on Friday approved the restart of the idled Sendai nuclear plant of Kyushu Electric Power Co, paving the way for a revival of the stalled industry more than three years after the Fukushima disaster. In a vote on Friday, 38 of the 47 members of Kagoshima’s prefectural assembly backed the restart. The move represents a victory for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which has defended the importance of nuclear power for resource-starved Japan and pushed to restart its fleet of 48 offline reactors. The two-reactor Sendai plant, located 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo in Kagoshima prefecture, also won an important endorsement for the restart from the local township last month.

I take seriously the prefectural assembly’s decision to approve the petition to restart (nuclear plants).

Yuichiro Ito, the pro-nuclear governor of Kagoshima

Japan has said it would defer to regional authorities to approve any restart. The Sendai plant now faces few obstacles, having secured approval from the host city, its mayor, the prefectural assembly and a promise from its governor. If the move goes through, the Sendai reactors will become the first to restart under a new, independent regulator formed after a massive earthquake and tsunami set off multiple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. The Sendai plant is still unlikely to reopen until next year as the utility still needs to pass operational safety checks.