OSAKA: Osaka High Court on Friday rejected a petition to shut down the No. 3 reactor of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, saying that there is “no concrete danger” that the aging reactor would cause a serious accident during operation.

The petition was filed by a total of seven residents in Fukui and the nearby prefectures of Shiga and Kyoto. The plaintiffs claimed that safety measures for the reactor, which has passed 40 years since becoming operational, are inadequate.

The high court ruling came after the plaintiffs appealed Osaka District Court’s rejection of the petition in December 2022.

At the high court, Presiding Judge Koji Hasegawa said that there is nothing unreasonable about the measures for aging reactors stipulated in the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s new standards, and that Kansai Electric’s special inspection of the Mihama reactor found no defect or deterioration.

Regarding two faults in the ground near the nuclear plant, which the plaintiffs pointed out, the judge said that no proper documents have been found to indicate that the faults could cause major changes in the land surface.

JIJI Press