Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has rejected a draft safety clearance for the 1,160 MW Unit 2 of Japan Atomic Power's (JAPC) Tsuruga nuclear power plant located in the Fukui prefecture of central Japan.
This is the first time the NRA rejects a draft safety clearance for a nuclear reactor since the process was introduced in 2012. The NRA justified its decision saying that the Tsuruga nuclear plant is situated above an active fault line, which is prohibited by Japan's nuclear guidelines. The Tsuruga Unit 2, which started commercial operations in 1987, went offline in May 2011 following the Fukushima accident.
In 2013, the NRA issued new nuclear safety rules that limited the number of operational nuclear reactors from 54 before the Fukushima accident to 12, and the share of nuclear in the power mix dropping from 25% in 2010 to 1% in 2015. In 2023, the share of nuclear rose its highest level since 2015 to 9%, with 33 GW of nuclear capacity, of which only 11 GW is currently in operation.
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