Four Japanese utilities applied Monday for permission to restart a total of 10 nuclear reactors under new safety regulations that are meant to prevent a recurrence of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster.
The requests came on the first day that applications were being accepted by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, which was created in September 2012. The previous agency, which was part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was widely criticized for being too close to the power industry to act as a proper watchdog, allowing safety lapses that contributed to the scale of the Fukushima accident. The disaster, in which three reactor cores melted down, was the world's worst after the Chernobyl accident of 1986 in the former Soviet Union.
The requests came from four of Japan's 10 main regional utilities: Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503.TO), Shikoku Electric Power Co. (9507.TO), Kyushu Electric Power Co. (9508.TO) and Hokkaido Electric Power Co. (9509.TO).
Notably absent was Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO), or Tepco, the operator of the Fukushima plant.
Tepco said last week it would seek restarts of the No.6 and No.7 reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world's largest by capacity, in Japan's northwestern Niigata prefecture. The decision, taken by the utility's board without any consultation with local communities, angered some officials, including Niigata governor Hirohiko Izumida, who demanded further explanations from the company.
A Tepco spokesman said Monday that no firm date had been set for submitting a restart application.
Even before the disaster at the Fukushima plant, the utility has faced a number of safety issues. Following a quake that automatically shut down the Kashiwazaki plant in 2007, it took more than a year to complete repairs and win approval for the plant to resume operations.
The restart requests also come amid campaigning for elections for Japan's upper house of parliament, which will take place July 21. Despite having a pro-nuclear policy that is at odds with many voters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party is expected to score an overwhelming victory.
Local media surveys conducted in May and June show that more than half of the population remains generally opposed to the use of nuclear power.
But since taking office in December, Mr. Abe's administration has consistently supported nuclear power, seeing it as a way to help lower the massive energy import bill to power the thermal power plants that are being used to fill the gap.
How long it will take to review the safety of each plant and approve the restarts remains unclear. Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the authority, had previously talked of a period of approximately six months per restart, although lately he has said that "it will depend on how the reactor satisfies the regulations." He has also warned that plant operators have continuously tried to "test the lower limits" of regulations. "We would like them to change their mindset," he said.
But Mr. Tanaka has himself come under pressure from some lawmakers and power company executives to quickly approve restart requests. In late June, he said at a weekly press conference that the authority needs more personnel to cope with the large number of reactor restart applications.
The authority currently has about 80 staff to check reactors safety, enough it says, to review three reactors at a time.
Takuya Hattori, chairman of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry body, said Monday in a statement he appreciated the work of the authority, but added that he hoped the authority "exchanges thoughts with the industry and the academy so as to deepen mutual understanding."
Any restarts would be good news for the hard-pressed power industry. All the major utilities, with the exception of non-nuclear Okinawa Electric Power Co. (9510.TO) on Japan's southernmost islands and Hokuriku Electric Power Co. (9505.TO), which has large hydro- and coal-power capacity, have been hit by the near-shutdown of all nuclear power generation in the aftermath of Fukushima Daiichi.
The industry collectively posted losses worth Y1.59 trillion ($15.7 billion) in the fiscal year ended in March due to the switch to fossil fuel facilities.
While potential restart dates are uncertain, the 10 reactors in question are all pressurized water reactors, which have a design deemed less vulnerable to accidents such as the Fukushima disaster.
In March 2011, unexpectedly high tsunamis generated by a strong earthquake knocked out all of the backup power at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which led the plant to meltdowns by paralyzing its cooling systems.
Pressurized water reactors have much larger reactor vessels compared with the boiling water reactors used at Fukushima Daiichi. They are therefore considered less likely to suffer from a massive meltdown even if cooling systems stop functioning, the problem that struck the Fukushima plant.