Japan turns off the last reactor
from today the country without nuclear

TOKYO – From this evening, for the first time in 42 years, Japan will no longer have, at least in the immediate future, electricity generated by the atom. The decision follows the crisis after the incident at the Fukushima plant. The Hokkaido Electric Power, utility of the island north of Hokkaido, will deactivate the unit No. 3 of the structure of Tomari, the last active of the 54 scattered in the archipelago, with the procedure that will start at 17:00 local time, will be the 10:00 in Italy, and will end with the total block expected at 11:00 pm.

Today, hundreds of Japanese are marching to demand the definitive end of nuclear use. The crowd gathered in a park in Tokyo, saying they were not worried about the government’s alarms about possible energy shortages in the coming months.

The stop of the reactors, mandatory every 13 months in Japan to be able to carry out the ordinary checks, has been intertwined for over a year with the Fukushima crisis. After the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, the worst emergency after Chernobyl, it raised strong doubts about the safety of the plants which, on the contrary, was previously considered a certainty.

The loss of radiation and mass evacuations have multiplied fears in public opinion on power plants to the point that, net of damaged reactors, such as the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, all the units stopped for routine checks are no longer distributed in the wake of the strong resistance registered among the local communities.

The administrative restart process, after the go-ahead of the authority on nuclear safety, provides for the consent given by the local authorities (municipalities and prefectures) that host the plants. So far, from the latter no approval has matured even in those areas with a strong vocation as the prefecture of Fukui, the ‘atomic heart’ of Japan with 14 reactors on a surface similar to that of the city of Rome, which make the area more nuclearized in the world.

(05 May 2012)