Roundup: Japan court bans restart of safety-cleared reactors, judges eye further bans

A Japanese court on Tuesday banned the restart of two idled reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama nuclear plant in western Japan, citing clear and " imminent danger" to local residents if the reactors were to be fired up.

The injunction, issued by the Fukui District Court in central Japan, shut down Kansai Electric's plans to restart its No. 3 and No. 4 reactors located on the Sea of Japan coast in Fukui Prefecture.

The court made the ruling after a petitioned made by a group of nine residents who originally filed for the injunction to keep the rectors idled due to safety concerns pertaining to the future risk from earthquakes.

The plant, according to Judge Hideaki Higuchi, remained ill- prepared to handle a major earthquake, such as the one that triggered a massive tsunami that sparked the worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when the key cooling systems failed at the Daiichi Fukushima plant in March 2011, resulting in multiple meltdowns and a crisis its operator and the government have still failed to bring under control.

The judge made it clear that no less than 5 unexpectedly large earthquakes have hit nuclear plants across Japan in less than a decade and suggested that Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority's ( NRA) new safety requirements, a new post-Fukushima safety benchmark for the restarting of the nation's 48-idled reactors were, "too lax" to guarantee people's safety and "lacked rationality."

"This is a decision that has a decisive impact on nuclear restarts," Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer for the plaintiffs was quoted as telling a group of supporters outside the court, who cheered the result and held placards, one of which read "The judiciary is still alive."

The injunction will come as a huge blow to the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a staunch proponent of bringing the idled reactors back online at an early juncture, as a comparatively weak yen has pushed up the price of the nation's imported fossil fuels that have been making up for the monumental energy deficit since the Fukushima disaster forced all the nation' s plants offline for safety reasons, and kept those already undergoing regular inspections shuttered.

Kansai Electric said it would appeal the court's decision and try to get the injunction lifted, but lawyers close to the case said this could be a lengthy process, possibly taking many months, if not years, and the huge costs involved in the case may be entirely prohibitive.

"It is extremely regrettable that our explanations were not accepted. We will do our utmost to prove the safety of the Nos. 3 and 4 units so the injunction order will be reversed," Kansai Electric said in a statement.

Japan's top government spokesperson said the government had no plans to change its policy regarding the nuclear reactors' safety checks.

"There is no change to the government position to respect the NRA's decision and continue restarting plants," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters Tuesday.

Kansai Electric said it expects to book a fourth straight yearly loss for the business year ended March to the tune of 161 billion yen (1.33 billion U.S. dollars), owing to the soaring costs of having to rely on imported fossil fuels for power generation.

While stating the utility has lost more than 740 billion yen since the Fukushima crisis, it said that following Tuesday's injunction, its future losses would now be "immeasurable."

Kansai Electric, knowing that Higuchi had previously blocked the restart of another of the utility's plants in May, attempted to have him and two panelists removed for Tuesday's adjudication, but the move failed.

The NRA in February originally gave safety clearance to the two reactors, with Japan's top nuclear authority unanimously stating that the new safety measures at the No. 3 and No.4 reactors at Kansai Electric's Takahama complex, met the government's safety requirements -- described by the government as "the toughest in the world" -- in the "post-Fukushima era" and can be restarted.

But ahead of the injunction, many citizens and local experts had expressed concern that the NRA had underestimated the potential size of tremors from an earthquake, while others feared that security measures had not been put in place to deal with other contingencies, like a terrorist attack for example. Endi