Niigata governor remains cautious about TEPCO N-Plant restart

October 27, 2017

Niigata Governor Ryuichi Yoneyama indicated on Friday that he remains cautious about a restart of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the central Japan prefecture.

Meeting at Yoneyama's office in the city of Niigata, TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa sought the governor's understanding of the plan to resume the operations of the No. 6 and No. 7 reactors at the plant.

But Yoneyama said, "I have no intention at all of saying yes unless safety is confirmed (by the prefecture's own inspections)."

Kobayakawa visited Yoneyama for the first time since the two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant effectively passed early this month the Nuclear Regulation Authority's screenings for restart, meeting the new safety standards introduced after the 2011 nuclear accident at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 plant in northeastern Japan.

Local consent is necessary for TEPCO to resume the operations of the two reactors.

"Restarts are necessary not only for our company's business stability but also for the country's energy policy and measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," Kobayakawa told the day's meeting. Jiji Press