Japan to shut down its last nuclear reactor

The No. 3 reactor at the Tomari nuclear plant, on the northern island of Hokkaido, will be shut down for a regular safety inspection, the operator said.

The national government has warned that major cities, including Tokyo and Osaka, face blackouts during the months of peak energy demand – in Japan's notoriously hot and muggy summer – unless local authorities grant permission for utilities to restart the 54 reactors.

Nuclear power previously provided fully one-third of Japan's energy.

But public opinion has turned fiercely against nuclear power since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the massive tsunami that it triggered which destroyed the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, 150 miles north-east of Tokyo.

Workers from Tokyo Electric Power Co. have been able to bring the four damaged reactors to a state of cold shutdown, meaning that temperatures within the reactor chambers are below 100 degrees Centigrade (212 Fahrenheit) and therefore no longer releasing radioactive steam.

But in the days and weeks immediately after the disaster, massive amounts of radioactivity – including caesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years – penetrated the ground and escaped into the air and the nearby waters of the Pacific Ocean.
The public backlash has been fierce and no local government has yet caved in to pressure to approve a reactor restarting after undergoing the legally mandated periodic safety checks.
The government has been cajoling officials in Fukui Prefecture to grant approval for Kansai Electric Power Co. to restart its reactors at the Oi plant, but to no avail so far.
"I am against restarting the Oi reactors right now," Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of nearby Osaka, told reporters recently. "Restarting them based just on the results of the stress tests is impossible.
"All sorts of questions, including safety concerns and whether or not there will be electricity shortages without them, have to be considered," he said.
On Wednesday, Jakucho Setouchi, a novelist and Buddhist nun joined a hunger strike in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo.
Setouchi, 89, wore a message reading "No to reactivation" pinned to her habit and vowed to continue her hunger strike until the Tomari plant goes off-line on Saturday evening.

LINK