Japan passes a law extending the life of nuclear power plants to more than 60 years | outside

This procedure allows periods when the reactors are closed to be excluded from the total service life. All nuclear reactors have been shut down for a long time to comply with nuclear safety rules introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Most of the reactors have not returned to service, according to the Japan Times, because successive governments did not want a quick restart by strong public opposition.

It’s one of the measures Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last summer to restart nuclear energy in Japan. The announcement came just months after the energy shock that followed the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Japan’s Nuclear Safety Authority (NRA) gave its approval in February.

Under the new legislation, reactors with a service life of more than 30 years must be inspected by the NRA every 10 years.

All Japanese nuclear power plants were shut down after the Fukushima disaster. Then a violent undersea earthquake triggered a massive tsunami on the northeastern coast of the island.

Of the 33 operating reactors in the country, only ten have been restarted since the nuclear disaster. Power plants that are now operating must meet higher safety standards. There are currently nine reactors operating in Japan, all of which are located in the west or southwest of the island.

Japan’s first commercial nuclear reactor was commissioned in 1966, according to a report by the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan (FEPC). Most of the plants currently in operation date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan got 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, according to the FEPC.