Court rejects case opposing restart of Miyagi Prefecture nuclear plant

"It cannot be assumed that a specific danger of an accident exists that leads to the abnormal release of radioactive materials," said Presiding Judge Mitsuhiro Saito.

Much the same reasoning that ended up with 2011. Where do they get these judges?

Given the uncertainty over the potential danger, the judge also said there is no need to take into account whether the evacuation plans are effective when handing down his decision.

Precautions? Who needs them?

Faced with rising electricity bills, people need to be realistic. The court’s decision reflected the people’s will and needs.

ruling their concerns about flaws in emergency evacuation plans are not relevant as it cannot be assumed a serious accident is likely.

History repeats itself.

The court’s decision reflected the people’s will and needs.

Then why not replace the courts with a poll?

Yeah no surprise there

Japanese judiciary.....may as well be in Nth Korea with how one sided their decisions are!

Just toeing the line on this decision as per usual!

Judges in Japan, as elsewhere, are only human and must think of their future career and pension, hence human "justice" is always adulterated by ears cocked to HMV. As for the people's will, that's far from the minds of most justices who would never presume or want to know such an inscrutable abstraction.

Was there any question?

All this is a bit odd. The reactors are still running. You can’t just switch them off. It’s only the production of electricity that is turned off.

Looking at that photo this plant is another Fukushima in the making with a tsunami.

These plants need to be started up ASAP. They don't even light up the insides of the highway tunnels anymore, stating it's to save "power" not money.

Of course, safety and precautions are important, and need to be in place, but they're better off buying those 17 people and starting the reactors now. I'm sure they're all over 75 and need a bit of spending money for fresh fruit.

Realistically Japan should get it’s atomic energy plants back online. Fukushima was a mind boggling disaster, no one denies that. But that was an act of nature, should have been insanely eye opening to normal citizens how incompetent their government officials were with how slow to act and evacuate they were, AND just plain old brutality unlucky.

The energy companies are cleaning up with prices and got allowed to increase price’s despite being caught weeks ago rigging the system for profit, yet are being allowed to raise prices anyway.

Theres been a lot of feet dragging on this issue and everyone is jumpy that they will be the next Fukushima, but the alternatives are just not viable long term

" ... ruling their concerns about flaws in emergency evacuation plans are not relevant as it cannot be assumed a serious accident is likely."

A risk assessment is based on both consequence and likelihood. The risk is still high, even with an unlikely accident, because the consequences can be catastrophic.

Such catastrophic events, though unlikely, have been happening and events of lesser consequence have been happening quite frequently.

A typical 5x5 Risk Matrix has likelihood categories of:

Almost Certain

Likely

Possible

Unlikely

Rare

The court, by saying, it cannot be assumed to be Likely, rather than directly saying it is Unlikely, is essentially saying, in risk assessment terms, that it is more likely to occur than not. That may not have been the intent, but it does raise concerns.

Rapdily shrinking demographics can't afford to invest in safe clean energy. Opposite would be Australia, shutting down dirty coal, using renewables & commercial battery storage to transition.

Economics also GOOD, Wind and Sun = FREE, thus Rich get Richer, while Poor get Poorer & TAKE MORE RISK, as earthquakes prefer older steel and concrete structures.

@Phillip bear ... Yup. I used to live in Sendai years ago. And I do a lot of risk analysis for my work. So, yeah, just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's not super dangerous. Unlikely occurance combined with catastrophic consequence typically means a really high risk factor. If the court/judge had actually used a standard risk assessment or analysis tool, he would have realized just how dangerous it is to run a nuclear reactor on the coast. But then again, we do need affordable electricity. So ...

Thanks kazungu,... yes, that would have been better.

 I too, did a lot of risk analysis during my working life, especially in relation to EH&S.

Sadly, though understandably, many lawyers do not tend to have a good understanding of technical matters.

Once, we had a lawyer doing an audit of X-Ray emitting devices across the company to fulfil a legal requirement. He sent out a survey asking each site about the number of electrical devices that emit electromagnetic radiation we had. I responded, indicating that we had lots of torches and other devices that fitted his description, that he probably wasn't interested in. He appreciated the response and reissued a better worded survey.

There have been terrible consequences associated with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, particularly the very sad human, environmental and social tragedies.

Additionally, it has also been reported that the financial cost, so far, has already been more than three times all of the profits TEPCO has ever made from nuclear power generation since it started in 1970. The clean up costs will continue to soar way into future.

TEPCO'S decisions were obviously not prudent, economically as well.

This is the will of the Court and the government policies. Not getting the will of the people is unforgivable. Getting the will of the people would mean holding a referendum where the reactors will be starting, not just having the commissioner's rubber stamp and say that they speak for the people. Not getting incredible consent of the people is unforgivable.

If we use this kind of logic maybe it will be better to reappropriate defense spending to pay part of our electricity bills. Why should we assume that other governments militaries will be a threat?

Looking at that photo this plant is another Fukushima in the making with a tsunami.

But it already survived the same earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima plant, despite being closer to the quake's epicenter. The nearby town of Onagawa was badly destroyed yet the power plant survived.

Perhaps they could have amassed more than 17 residents to sign on as plaintiffs if they want to be taken seriously.

Just approaching 40 years of operations.

Not as old as some of the older ones in Japan

Take the Fukushima nuclear disaster, for example. Who ever imagined a tsunami of that magnitude would hit the nuclear power plants and destroy their reactors.

The court cannot say as confidently as an almighty that a serious disaster is unlikely when geographical conditions of location for Onagawa seems almost the same.