30-07-2025
Hokkaido's Tomari nuclear reactor passes safety screening
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday approved a safety screening report that the No. 3 reactor at the Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido meets the country's safety standards.
The reactor at Hokkaido Electric Power's plant is the first in Japan that has won such approval since the No. 2 reactor at the Shimane power plant of Chugoku Electric Power, which passed a safety screening in 2021, and the 18th reactor since the current safety standards were adopted.
The Tomari No. 3 reactor, the newest in Japan, started operation in 2009. The authority screened the reactor for an unusually long period of 12 years as it took time for Hokkaido Electric to explain its measures to deal with possible earthquakes and tsunamis.
The company, however, is still in litigation with local residents as it has appealed a court order not to operate the plant issued in 2022. It is uncertain whether the company can restart the reactor in 2027 as planned, given that it needs to obtain agreements from local governments.
Hokkaido Electric applied for the safety screening on the day the current safety standards took effect in July 2013.
The company has raised the maximum seismic ground motion assumed in its quake resistance design from 550 gals to 693 gals and the assumed maximum tsunami height from 7.3 meters to 17.8 meters.
The company is building a seawall 19 meters tall with plans to complete it by around March 2027. It has also presented plans to build a new port in the north of the plant and establish a new transportation route dedicated to nuclear fuel, in view of the possibility that a nuclear fuel transportation ship may collide with the seawall due to tsunamis.
Hokkaido Electric estimates that the reactor's safety measures will cost at least ¥515 billion ($3.47 billion). It aims to restart the plant's remaining two reactors in the first half of the 2030s.
