Japan nuke reactors rapid restart unlikely - report

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hopes within an anxious business community that Japan's idle nuclear power stations would be rapidly restarted will almost certainly have to be placed on the backburner despite last weekend's landslide election victory by a pro-nuclear party, according to Reuters.

Shares of nuclear operators surged after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), with a reputation for close links to the nuclear industry, was returned to power. The reasoning was it would respond quickly to industry demands to get reactors going more than 18 months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Tokyo Electric, operator of the crippled Fukushima plant, climbed 53 percent. Kansai Electric Power Co, the most nuclear reliant of the utilities, is up almost 18 percent.

But restarts are likely to be a slow process, subject to rules still to be drafted by a new nuclear regulator and to wary public opinion, mobilized against the industry since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to meltdowns at Fukushima.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), set up with more independence after the disaster discredited its predecessor, is expected to draw up safety standards by July 2013. It will judge whether plants are safe to restart, but its head says elected officials must take the final decision.

Media surveys have shown a majority of Japanese want to abandon atomic energy by 2030, if not sooner. The outgoing DPJ government promised to end reliance on an energy source that supplied about 30 percent of Japan's needs before Fukushima.