Onagawa reactor in Miyagi Prefecture restarted after 13-year hiatus

Excellent!

In 2018, said will be scrapped but they reverse that decision?

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181026/p2a/00m/0na/027000c

It's LONG OVERDUE!

Hope that the “lessons learnt” from past incidents have all been implemented and the reactor facility had been confirmed safe against any black swan events. In other words, a thorough risk assessment has been performed and documented. And the regulators have been satisfied by the control measures. Wish them a safe and smooth operations.

Well, we have no choice, burn coal, burn gas, or use nuclear. What is the lesser of the evils?

But we need electricity.

Russian sanctions on LPG make it more expensive to buy from "friendly" countries, that leave coal and nuclear power. Why rush to build more coal-fired power plants when there is plenty of nuclear options in reserve. Good to see Japan waking to reality.

Good job. Slowly but surely Tohoku is getting back on its feet.

I assume that they learned from the Fukushima experience and made sure that outside power supply for cooling is guaranteed. The Fukushima situation was a comedy of errors.

And of course I hope they start planning for Gen IV reactors, instead of only re-activating old Gen II ones.

Mike_Oxlong

Russian sanctions on LPG make it more expensive to buy from "friendly" countries, that leave coal and nuclear power.

Cheap NG from Russia would solve the issue, but like Germany, Japan blindly follows US orders and cut that off. To the great benefit of India, China, and others.

Does Japan import Russian gas?

Yes, Japan imports Russian gas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil.

Japan is one of the world's largest LNG importers. In December 2023, Japan imported 833,000 metric tons of LNG from Russia, the highest monthly volume in seven years. In August 2023, Japan's LNG imports from Russia increased by 49%.

https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas/japans-lng-imports-from-russia-up-by-49-in-aug-us-supply-down-preliminary-data-shows/113476491#:~:text=TOKYO%3A%20Japan's%20import%20of,customs%20data%20showed%20on%20Wednesday.

The power companies spent ¥15 trillion updating the safety of about 20 reactors.

In the meantime Japan will start saving money by not buying in lpg, coal etc, the money that they save, will it go into subsidising sola panel installation on houses, farm building, factory buildings, or even help subsidise wind turbine farms on and off shore ? This will go to help the energy shortages, not only will it help the shortages it's cleaner.

Nuclear power is generating about 7% of total power for Japan.

Nuclear energy provides about 9% of the world's electricity from about 440 power reactors.

The pipeline supplying Russian gas to Japan runs down the west coast under the sea. It branches off in Hokkaido, Akita, Yamagata (where it is pumped across the Pacific coast in Sendai) then terminates in Ishikawa.

It must be a pretty robust piece of engineering as it wasn't affected by the Noto Hanto earthquakes.

Russian supplies 9% of Japanese (imported) L.P.G.

This summer, power supply in eastern Japan was sufficient without nuclear power despite deadly heat.

Such restart of superannuated nuclear plants is just for only vested interests of power corporation or nuclear Industry.

This country always has risk of strong quake or tsunami almost eternally.