Japan’s nuclear watchdog chief said on Wednesday a landmark court injunction banning the restart of two atomic reactors was based on a judicial “misunderstanding” of basic facts.
“Although I haven’t studied it in detail, many things that are based on misunderstandings are written in the verdict,” Shunichi Tanaka told reporters, asked about the court injunction issued on Tuesday.
“It is internationally recognised that our new regulatory regime is one of the strictest... but that was apparently not understood (by the judge),” the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) told reporters. Tanaka’s damning comments come the day after a district court in the central prefecture of Fukui granted a temporary stop order in response to a bid by local residents to halt the restart of the No 3 and No 4 reactors at the Takahama nuclear power plant.
That came after the NRA last December said Takahama’s reactors met tougher safety standards introduced after the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima in 2011. Pro-atomic Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has backed an industry push to return to nuclear -- which once supplied more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity -- as companies squeal over the high cost of electricity produced from dollar-denominated fossil fuels.
But Japan has seen a groundswell of public opposition to nuclear power since Fukushima, where reactors went into meltdown after a tsunami swamped their cooling systems -- setting off the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
“Although I haven’t studied it in detail, many things that are based on misunderstandings are written in the verdict,” Shunichi Tanaka told reporters, asked about the court injunction issued on Tuesday.
“It is internationally recognised that our new regulatory regime is one of the strictest... but that was apparently not understood (by the judge),” the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) told reporters. Tanaka’s damning comments come the day after a district court in the central prefecture of Fukui granted a temporary stop order in response to a bid by local residents to halt the restart of the No 3 and No 4 reactors at the Takahama nuclear power plant.
That came after the NRA last December said Takahama’s reactors met tougher safety standards introduced after the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima in 2011. Pro-atomic Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has backed an industry push to return to nuclear -- which once supplied more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity -- as companies squeal over the high cost of electricity produced from dollar-denominated fossil fuels.
But Japan has seen a groundswell of public opposition to nuclear power since Fukushima, where reactors went into meltdown after a tsunami swamped their cooling systems -- setting off the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.