Do you agree with the Japanese government's decision to order the restart of the Oi nuclear reactors?

I was so sad to hear this news. I wanted to see that Japan would be able to manage this problem without restart of nuclear reactors. I wanted to be proud of Japan's guts.

But, the point is, even if the other 40 reactors are offline they are still just as dangerous as before,. Therefor, restarting these two means very little.

But, the point is, even if the other 40 reactors are offline they are still just as dangerous as before,. Therefor, restarting these two means very little.

Actually they aren't.

I was so sad to hear this news. I wanted to see that Japan would be able to manage this problem without restart of nuclear reactors. I wanted to be proud of Japan's guts.

I would say it takes guts to restart the reactors. In any case they have to and it's good that they did.

2020hindsights - actually, they ARE! What do you think? You just push a switch and stop the rods producing heat and radiation? They are still susceptible to a meltdown regardless of being online or not.

Disillusioned

You just push a switch and stop the rods producing heat and radiation? They are still susceptible to a meltdown regardless of being online or not.

True. But reactors in a state of cold shutdown are safer than reactors that are active if an earthquake happens. If this were not the case, there would be absolutely no case not to start all inactive nuclear reactors right away.

Yes, but what can do 2 reactors achieve to control a massive shortage of energy?

But reactors in a state of cold shutdown are safer than reactors that are active if an earthquake happens.

How? If their cooling fails they will go into meltdown exactly the same as in Fukushima regardless of being online or offline.

Reckless,

Germany has not turned off all it's reactors.

Disillusioned Jun. 18, 2012 - 05:17PM JST

"But reactors in a state of cold shutdown are safer than reactors that are active if an earthquake happens."

How? If their cooling fails they will go into meltdown exactly the same as in Fukushima regardless of being online or offline.

The control rods are in so the fuel in the fuel rods is not fissioning, and the decay heat from the rods will be dissipating - so they will be safer. Note that at Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactors 5, and 6 were in cold shutdown at the time of the disaster and did not go into meltdown.

In addition to the dangers inherent in a country with large and frequent earthquakes such as Japan, there is the problem of disposing of the radioactive waste. Nuclear power passes the buck to the future generation. They are the ones who are going to have to deal with it.

Renewable recourses don't suffer from the same problem.

Here's an idea. Scrap the euphemistically named "Japan Self Defense Force to save money for windmills, dams, harnessing the heat cold potential in the oceans and so on.

Go green!

If they had made every effort to conserve energy or come up with a good plan to manage the grid better, I would probably support the restart for the short term. But as I have said here before on several occasions, the street lights are often on in broad daylight and there has been no education or incentive programs for businesses and individuals to reduce their power consumption. Where is 'kizuna' when it comes to banding together to save energy? The rally cry of 'kizuna' is only used by the government when money is invloved. This restart is only about preserving the 'necessity' for nuclear power and lining the their pockets with money.

Here's an idea. Scrap the euphemistically named "Japan Self Defense Force to save money for windmills, dams, harnessing the heat cold potential in the oceans and so on.

Then who do you suppose will be first on the scene to deal with the next earthquake or tsunami that Japan has to deal with? They were outstanding in 2011 and I hope it will be many, many years before they are outstanding again.

I think most of us who voted 'yes' would like Japan to be 100% green but that's not going to happen overnight.

Just hope the people responsible will be exactly that - responsible. Pretty sure they will tread carefully as they are under a lot of observation, let's hope this is the case.

The way they went about it was just totally wrong. So, because of this, absolutely, NO.

Under certain conditions I was ready to accept a measure of restarts while they put time, energy and money into building up correspondingly less poisonous renewables. I was hoping they would show step by step what was being done to guarantee safety, and that it would be a transparent process. Maybe I was a fool, but I was still willing to believe things might improve.

Things are still coming to light which expose cover-ups, incompetence, and bullying. Safety is always a secondary or tertiary concern. (They even had an alarm go off at Reactor No.3 at Oi today, which was covered up, again, for something like 13 hours before someone saw fit to admit it.)

people need electricity.. especially for sweltering Japanese summers

Turn these reactors on and the Japanese economy comes ROARING back. I think the only opposition to powering this nation back up again is very cynical and political. Quite simply, some people want to see the current ruling party fall. So they oppose the restarting of Japan's power grid in order to make the DPJ look bad. I wish we could get the cynicism of anti-nuclear movements out of politics.

Anyone in favor of turning these reactors back on should be relocated to Fukushima, including and especially PM Noda. Perhaps the move will jog their memories, and the events of last year will come back to them?

The government is smoking crack. Seriously. Nuclear power is like communism, it works great on paper, but in reality it will only lead to trouble. Last summer in Tokyo the power saving never inconvenienced me. It's time to start dismantling ALL reactors and get ready for the future with sustainable energy. If Japan takes this rigorous step, they will be on the forefront of innovation and economic boom like back in the day when the rest of the world is still messin around with coal, oil and nuclear.

Yes, I can finally say that the Japanese government has not only made the right choice, but has done something I support 100%. This is about economics and national sovereignty. Japan cannot economically survive without nuclear power, which is the cheap, clean and environmentally friendly choice for the future. We also see protests against nuclear power which echo suspiciously the anti-Japanese mantra that one hears from pro-Chongryon or pro-CCP groups - one is forced to wonder if the "citizens" protesting nuclear power aren't actually professional members of the unionized hard left who have come to do the bidding of their puppet masters.

I see the restart of these reactors as a step in the right direction, a sign of recovery.