New nuclear regulator to impose tighter safety standards

Shutting the barn door after the horse is out mentality.

The thing to see now however is will the regulations be followed and what teeth do they have to punish those who fail to follow them.

is community approval from local government still required for reactor restarts or does this agency have the power to restart regardless of community opinion?

Why don't I feel reassured?

“But our argument is: what if there were an external force five times as much?”

Five times what? Most of these things are designed for M7.5-8 quakes, and 5 times the force (acceleration) would be higher than recorded even with the M9 quake 3/11. I'm all for stricter regulations than they had in the past, but without scientific reasoning behind their demands it's had to say it's actually going to improve safety. They proved already that it wasn't a mechanical failure as much as human failure, so what the hell are they going to do about that? Will they finally allow plants to transport batteries without permits in the case of an emergency?

Chane is good and I hope they can maintain there integrity in the Japanese traditional style environment.

Nuclear power is inherently dangerous and in a country like Japan where it has been shown to be exceedingly dangerous the an outright ban is the only option. Any other course is foolhardy.

Too little...too late...

The best safety is no danger at all....No Nuke's.....

Sounds to me like they plan to keep nuclear power beyond 2030/2040. (I see different news articles so I'm not sure which year they plan to stick with.)

Imposing better standards is fine, but the question here is: will the new NRA body maintain these standards, or are they just for show?

The history of Japan's nuclear program has been marred by mismanagement and poor implementation of set standards. Even if the standards are quite old and maybe obsolete, they may have helped lessen the scale of the Fukushima disaster.

the best safety standards is to replace all nuke reactors with alternative sources of energy. u will never convince anybody of safety

Japan’s new nuclear regulator will impose tighter safety standards for atomic plants, taking account of geological data in the earthquake-prone country, its head says.

They get it wrong again. The major threats to Japanese nuke plants are four: earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami/floods and possible terrorism. In addition to ensuring the highest safety measures considering each of these individually, the best safety scenario mapping measures should consider when at least 3 catastrophes happen at the same time. The fukushima scandal did not only involve earthquake.

The NRA's mission is not to ensure 100% security - it is anyway impossible - but to regain blind confidence by the population. It will take a bit time, but it will work.

Five times what? Most of these things are designed for M7.5-8 quakes, and 5 times the force (acceleration) would be higher than recorded even with the M9 quake 3/11.

basroil, are you trying to mislead people again? First of all, the scale for earthquake strength is logarithmic, so five times the strength of a M7.5-8 quake is still much less than M9. Furthermore, when we look at peak ground acceleration values rather than energy, the design target for most Japanese reactors is 600gal. Five times that value is 3000gal. The measured PGA of the Tohoku quake on 3/11 was 2990gal, while that of the 2008 quake in Iwate was 4360gal. The strenght (i.e. energy) of the Iwate quake was only M7.2, because the duration was shorter. Both factors, energy and acceleration, are relevant for determining the earthquake resistance of a reactor. It doesn't matter whether the reactor breaks due to a single strong movement or a long period of weaker movements.

They've got a nuclear plant at Hamaoka on a beach near the spot where two tectonic plates converge. And they are going to impose tighter regulations? Regulate away mates, but it's all meaningless until they study a bit of geology and realise that Japan is the worst place in the world for nuclear power.