Tokyo Electric Power said on Monday it may start to decommission at least one nuclear reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant, the world’s biggest nuclear plant by capacity, within five years of restarting two of the reactors at the site. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) President Tomoaki Kobayakawa made the decommissioning comments in a statement outlining its response to a request for plans on the station’s future by the government of the city of Kashiwazaki in Niigata prefecture, where the plant is located. In 2017, Tepco received initial regulatory approval from the Japanese government to restart the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, each with a capacity of 1,356 megawatts (MW). The plant site has seven reactors with a total capacity of 8,212 MW, equal to 20% of Japan’s nuclear capacity. The facility is Tepco’s last remaining nuclear plant after it announced plans to shut its Fukushima Daini station, nearby the Fukushima Daichi station where a massive earthquake and tsunami caused the meltdown of three of the site’s reactors in 2011.
London South East 26th Aug 2019 read more »