Japan: Second nuclear unit comes online

TOKYO: Kansai Electric Power Company said its 1,180 megawatt reactor at its Ohi nuclear plant resumed supplying electricity to the grid on Saturday, Japan’s second nuclear unit to regain power since last year’s Fukushima crisis led to the shutdown of all units. Japan ended two months without nuclear power on July 5, when the Ohi plant’s third unit resumed power output for the first time since a nationwide safety shutdown that followed a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Japan had idled the last of its working reactors in early May, leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970. All but two of the country’s 50 nuclear reactors have been offline for checks amid concerns about safety, and the gap is being met by firing up costly fossil fuel units and through energy-saving steps.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2012.