Hokkaido, Shimane give go-ahead for new reactors

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Hokkaido, Shimane give go-ahead for new reactors

TOKYO, July 14 (Kyodo) - 

The governors of Hokkaido and Shimane on Friday expressed support for 
plans by two power companies to build an additional reactor in each 
of their existing nuclear power plants in the respective prefectures, 
in the first major decisions in favor of nuclear power since the 
country's worst nuclear accident last September. 

Shimane Gov. Nobuyoshi Sumita told a meeting of the prefectural 
assembly, ''I have decided to approve the plan after seeing the 
consent given by the prefectural assembly and the three closest 
municipalities (to the nuclear plant).'' 

Chugoku Electric Power Co., which owns two nuclear actors at its 
power plant in the town of Kashima in the western Japan prefecture on 
the Sea of Japan coast, plans to build a third reactor with 
generating capacity of 1,373,000 kilowatts there. 

The two reactors are generating 460,000 kw and 820,000 kw, 
respectively. 

The local governments gave their consent to the plan following a 
decision in late June by the Electric Power Development Coordination 
Council, an advisory body to the prime minister, to approve an 
economic stimulus package worth some 110 billion yen for Shimane and 
its municipalities in exchange for accepting an additional reactor. 

The package includes public works projects to build roads and sewage 
facilities. 

Yasue Ashihara, a local resident opposing the reactor plan, was 
critical of the governor's decision, saying he ''exchanged safety 
with money.'' 

Kazumasa Yasumoto, another opponent, said he is concerned about an 
active fault recently found about 2.5 kilometers south of the nuclear 
plant. ''We never know when we will have a major earthquake in the 
Shimane Peninsula. If a major accident occurs at the plant, nearby 
communities will turn into death towns.'' 

Earlier Friday, Hokkaido Gov. Tatsuya Hori said he will approve 
Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s plan to construct a third nuclear power 
reactor at its power plant in the village of Tomari, west of Sapporo. 


At a meeting of the prefectural assembly held in the early hours of 
Friday, Hori said, ''A stable electricity supply needs to be secured 
to improve the standard of living of Hokkaido people. To this end, we 
need to develop a new electricity source of about 900,000 kw to cope 
with the expected maximum electricity demand in and after fiscal 
2008.'' 

He said that he will make a final decision to approve the reactor 
plan after confirming the sentiments of the four municipalities 
closest to the plant. 

Hokkaido Electric Power has two operating reactors at the Tomari 
plant with a generating capacity of 579,000 kw each, providing about 
30% of electricity needs for all of Hokkaido. 

The company plans to build a third reactor with a capacity of 912,000 
kw. Business circles in Hokkaido and assembly members of the Liberal 
Democratic Party, the largest force in the Hokkaido Assembly, have 
demanded its early construction. 

But civic groups opposing the construction have collected some 
780,000 signatures to demand a referendum on the construction. They 
presented Hori with the signatures last month. 

The decision by the prefectures is the first time that prefectural 
authorities have come out in support of nuclear power following the 
nuclear disaster in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, which claimed the 
lives of two workers at a nuclear fuel plant. 

In February, Chubu Electric Power Co. withdrew plans to build a 
nuclear power plant in Mie Prefecture, western Japan, after Mie Gov. 
Masayasu Kitagawa said the project should be scrapped. 

Kitagawa cited the fact that public sentiment toward nuclear energy 
had been ''increasingly negative'' since a recent string of technical 
problems at nuclear plants, including the Tokaimura disaster. 

On Sept. 30, workers at the Tokaimura plant triggered a self-
sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction by pouring too much uranium 
into a tank using procedures that deviated from government-approved 
methods. 

Hundreds of people were exposed to radiation in the incident. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
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