We wrote recently of an evacuation drill held at the Sendai nuclear power plant …

We wrote recently of an evacuation drill held at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima that would bring refugees to southern Kumamoto. Not on any known fault lines and under little threat from tsunami, reactors at Sendai and Kyushu’s other nuclear plant in Genkai, Saga (photo below), were the first to be restarted after the Fukushima disaster.

Kumanichi reports on danger from a different cause: deterioration due to age. The Nuclear Commission has determined that Genkai’s second reactor, open in 1980, must be decommissioned, but that the funds required to do so will be huge. As it is run by the Kyūshū Electric Power Company (known as Kyuden, 九電), Kumamoto’s power prices will also likely rise to cover the costs.

I found Wikipedia has short but informative English entries on both plants that I recommend reading. These are listed below along with a link to the Kumanichi article. - William

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genkai_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendai_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://this.kiji.is/468226926182319201?c=92619697908483575