Japan’s Atomic Energy Supervision Committee lifted the ban on the restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, Japanese Government Secretary General Yoshimasa Hayashi announced at a press conference on Wednesday.
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“It took almost three years to investigate violations of the handling of nuclear materials at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. Today, the Atomic Energy Supervision Committee canceled the order banning the movement of nuclear materials. The government respects the scientific and technical decision of the independent oversight committee “over nuclear energy and with the condition of paramount safety, we intend to provide explanations for the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant to Niigata Prefecture and local authorities regarding its necessity and meaning (restart) in order to achieve their understanding,” Hayashi said.
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The Atomic Energy Supervision Committee two years and eight months ago banned the movement of nuclear materials at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, which actually meant a ban on its operation, due to insufficient security measures, primarily anti-terrorism. In addition, in May of this year, it became known that an employee of the station operator, the TERCO company, lost important documents on this nuclear power plant on the street: he took them to work at home without the permission of his boss, drove from home to the store, put the papers on the roof of the car, but I only realized it the next day. Of the 80 pages, less than half were found.
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The documents included drawings related to construction work to prevent fire and flood damage related to the 6th power unit.
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Despite the lifting of the ban, the station operator has yet to convince local authorities and residents of the need to restart it.
