High court upholds approval for nuclear units in southwest Japan

FUKUOKA – A Japanese high court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling rejecting a call by residents to invalidate the approval given for the operation of two nuclear reactors in Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan.

The Fukuoka High Court ruling on the Nos. 1 and 2 units at Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai nuclear power plant was the first by a high court on the legitimacy of the approval under the new safety standards introduced in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima in 2011.

The plaintiffs claimed that the approval for the reactors was given without sufficient consideration of the risk of catastrophic volcanic eruptions under unreasonable safety guidelines, while the government argued that it is acceptable to discount the likelihood of such extreme eruptions.

The Fukuoka District Court in June 2019 concluded that the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s guidelines on volcanic impact were reasonable.

Among similar lawsuits, the Osaka District Court ruling on the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of a nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture was the only one in favor of the residents. Currently, four similar lawsuits are pending at three high courts.