After the closure of TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 nuclear power station for routine maintenance on 26 March 2012, just one reactor (Tomari 3) remains in operation in Japan.
Tomari 3, a 912 MW pressurized water reactor, operated by Hokkaido Electric Power Company is due to be shut down for its own periodic inspection by May. This could potentially leave all 50 of the country’s operable reactors offline.
It is uncertain when Japan will begin to restart its reactors, and as such the country ‘continues to face extremely tight supply and demand,’ according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan.
Prior to the Fukushima nuclear accident nuclear power contributed to around a third of Japan’s electricity production. In February 2011, nuclear accounted for 21.7 TWh (32%) of the electricity generated in Japan, according to FEPC. By February 2012 this had fallen by over 90% to just 2.1TWh (3%) of generation from a handful of reactors.
FEPC said that it is “determined to regain the trust of the residents of nuclear plant-hosting communities and the entire society so that the plants can be restarted as soon as possible.”
Related ArticlesMolybdenum-99 market supply and demand
