Environment

Japan restarts first nuclear reactor - 4 years after Fukushima

Amid substantial public opposition, Japan on Tuesday restarted one of more than 40 atomic reactors that were taken out of service in wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Kyushu Electric Power Co. said it had restarted the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai plant in Kagoshima prefecture about 600 miles southwest of Tokyo. The facility was expected to start actually generating electricity by the end of the week and return to full output by early September, operators said.

Nuclear power provided about 30% of Japan's energy before the Fukushima accident, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. After the meltdown, Japan took its reactors off-line, and the government led by Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced a plan to phase out nuclear power by 2030.

Since then, Japan has had to make up for that lost generating capacity largely by burning coal and natural gas. Japan, which has little fossil fuel of its own, must import that material, and power costs have risen substantially for businesses and households.

Environment

Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant says it is moving tons of highly radioactive water from a temporary storage tank to another because of a possible leak.

TEPCO said on Saturday about 108 tonnes the water are believed to have breached the tank's inner linings, although little is thought to have leaked into the soil. TEPCO is moving the water to a nearby tank. It is part of the water that was used to cool melted fuel at the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors damaged in the March 2011 disaster. So much water was used that TEPCO is struggling to find storage space.

The plant is being decommissioned but continues to experience glitches. A fuel storage pool temporarily its lost cooling system on Friday, a month after a similar 30-hour outage.

Nuclear Power

The Japanese government has given the go-ahead to bring the first nuclear reactor back online after last year's earthquake and tsunami.

High levels of radioactivity continue to be reported in the sea far off the coast from the Fukushima nuclear plant.