Japan eases rule on nuclear plant antiterror facility deadline

Under the country's new regulatory standards for nuclear plants, the operators are obliged to complete facilities to deal with specific severe incidents, such as terrorist attacks, within five years from the time when regulatory approval is given to a construction plan at a nuclear plant.

At a meeting Wednesday, the NRA gave the green light to changing the start of the five-year period to when a nuclear reactor begins operation.

If the change is implemented by year-end, reactors under tight deadlines, including one at Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture, whose deadline is December, are expected to avoid suspension of their operations.

The facilities in question, called specialized safety facilities, have the function of remotely cooling reactor vessels even if the main control rooms are destroyed in aircraft collisions or other terrorist attacks.

Power suppliers are not allowed to operate reactors that have missed the deadlines for completing such facilities.

For this reason, Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture and Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama plant in Fukui Prefecture have had reactors halted.

The nuclear industry watchdog aims to present a draft revision to related regulations in May.

After a public comment period, the revision is expected to be put into force.

The No. 6 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture, which was restarted earlier this year, is expected to see the safety facility deadline delayed to April 2031 from September 2029 at present.

The change will not affect reactors that have already passed the due dates, such as the No. 7 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant and Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tokai No. 2 plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

These reactors cannot be operated until the facilities are completed.

Out of the 12 reactors across the country for which antiterrorism facilities have been completed, only one met the deadline.

"We've presented a realistic path to completing (specialized safety) facilities without lowering the quality of safety measures," NRA Chairman Shinsuke Yamanaka told a news conference.