Date : 13/08/2012
TOKYO, Aug 13 (KUNA) -- The operating rate at Japan's nuclear power plants
reached 2.9 percent in July, marking the first growth on the month in eight
months, the Nikkei business daily reported Monday, citing data from the
industry body.
Operations resumed at two reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi
nuclear plant in western Japan last month, pushing the utilization rate up
from zero percent in June, according to the Federation of Electric Power
Companies of Japan.
All of Japan's workable 50 commercial reactors remained offline in June,
after last unit at Tomari nuclear plant in northern Japan was suspended in May
for routine safety inspections to leav the country without nuclear power for
the first time since 1970.
Such checks are required every 13 months, and public concerns about safety
since the radiation accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in
March 2011 had stopped any reactor from being restarted. But the government
decided to restart the two idled nuclear reactors at the Oi plant early July
in an effort to help alleviate possible power shortages this summer in areas
served by the utility.
The Fukushima plant, located 230 km north of Tokyo, was badly hit by the
magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that caused explosions, meltdowns and
massive leaks of radioactive material as the world's worst nuclear accident
since the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. (end)
mk.rk
KUNA 131148 Aug 12NNNN