Japan's nuclear regulator announced that elevating safety culture to international standards will "take a long time", to avoid a repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority admitted that the awareness of the dangers related to working with nuclear technology had been weak prior to the disaster and that it hoped new standards would force the companies to change their approach.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima plant that had three meltdowns, Kansai Electric Power Co and three other listed nuclear operators have said they will apply for restarts after the rules go into effect.
Only two of Japan's 50 reactors are running and the decision by the previous government to start them up last year was met with the biggest protests in decades and contributed to its defeat in polls in December.
According to an Asahi newspaper poll in June, 59 percent of respondents were opposed to the new government's plans to use nuclear power to help turn the economy around.
Without reactors running, the utilities have been forced to turn to fossil fuels instead, especially costly liquefied natural gas (LNG).
|