Japan’s NRA rejects restart for Tsuruga No.2 reactor

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) today rejected a draft safety clearance for Japan Atomic Power's (JAPC) 1,160MW Tsuruga No.2 reactor to restart operations.

This is the first time the NRA has rejected a draft safety clearance for a nuclear reactor since it was set up in 2012.

The NRA plans to receive technical and scientific comments from the public for 30 days from 29 August and then will make an official, final decision. It is unclear when NRA will make this final decision.

A NRA committee on 26 July dismissed a claim by JAPC arguing that an earthquake fault line under Tsuruga in west Japan's Fukui prefecture is unlikely to be active, so operating the Tsuruga No.2 reactor will be safe even if a disaster occurred. The NRA on 28 August said that there were many mistakes and falsifications of documents and data submitted by JAPC, resulting in it taking around 10 years to assess the safety of the reactor.

JAPC said it will continue to attempt a restart of the Tsuruga No.2 reactor.

Japan's guidelines prohibit any reactors from being built above an active fault line. The NRA and seismologists in 2015 concluded that JAPC's Tsuruga No.1 and No.2 reactors were located above such a fault line. But JAPC said in 2015 that NRA's conclusion was unacceptable, claiming its own assessment showed the fault line was inactive.

Japan, which is one of the world's most seismically active countries, has been checking the status of tectonic fault lines underneath reactors since a devastating earthquake and tsunami sparked a nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima power plant in March 2011.

By Nanami Oki