Japan court blocks restart of two nuclear reactors

Four years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a group of residents has won a court ruling preventing two nuclear reactors in western Japan from restarting, complicating Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to rebuild the country's atomic industry.

The local district decision in Fukui, announced on Tuesday, could rekindle a divisive debate on nuclear safety. Surveys show a majority of Japanese remained opposed to restarting some of the 48 reactors closed since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan and led to the largest nuclear incident since Chernobyl in 1986.

Hideaki Higuchi, the leading judge in the case, said it was "too optimistic" to assume that earthquakes that exceeded the facilities' quake resistance standards would not occur and criticised the country's post-Fukushima safety standards.

"The new regulatory standards are too lax and the safety of the reactors in question will not be ensured even if they meet the standards," Mr Higuchi said, according to a statement of the ruling released on the court's homepage.

The judge sided with a group of nine local residents that had sought an injunction against the No 3 and 4 reactors at Takahama. The residents cited the facility's vulnerability to earthquakes, although the plants passed the stricter safety standards set by the Nuclear Regulation Authority after the Fukushima accident.

Kansai Electric Power, which operates the two reactors, said the court decision was "unacceptable" and that it would appeal. The company had predicted the two reactors would be restarted by November, but legal proceedings could continue for months.

The delay is a blow for the power industry, which before the 2011 accident had relied on nuclear plants to generate nearly 30 per cent of the country's electricity. The national nuclear shutdown has forced utilities to import vast amounts of additional oil and gas to make up the shortfall.

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Businesses have pressed for the plants to be brought back online, saying the rising cost of power is burdening the economy and damaging competitiveness.

Government officials say Japan's new safety standards are the toughest in the world. "There is no change to our policy of going forward with the restarts," Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary, said at a news conference following Tuesday's ruling.

But the court decision was welcomed by anti-nuclear advocates, who said it could also affect efforts to restart other reactors. A ruling in a similar case seeking to bar the resumption of Kyushu Electric Power's Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima prefecture, southern Japan, is expected next week.

"With today's decision, it will not be so easy to restart the other plants, including Sendai," Naoto Kan, a former prime minister who adopted an anti-nuclear stance after the Fukushima disaster, told the Financial Times. "This is an extremely significant decision."

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