Japan's last operating reactor, Hokkaido Electric's Tomari 3, was taken offline for a scheduled periodic inspection outage on 5 May. The inspection itself will take a little more than 2 months, but when the reactor can expect to return to operation remains unknown. Following the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government asked nuclear reactors to pass "stress tests" to test their ability to withstand catastrophic events.
Although the tests have been completed at some of the reactors, no reactor has yet been given the authorisation to restart. The findings of the stress tests results for two of Kansai's reactors, Ohi 3 and 4, have already met with approval from Japanese nuclear regulators and the government has voiced its approval for the units to restart. However, under popular pressure, approval for restarts at the local level has not yet been secured.
Without its nuclear plants, Japan is having to turn to other sources of power. According to figures from the Japanese Atomic Industry Forum, the country faces a 12% shortage of electricity in summer 2012. Meanwhile additional fossil fuel imports are costing it about $40bn, or $333 per person, per year while its carbon emissions have risen some 14% above 1990 levels.
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