Japan’s largest internet auction site will ban individuals from offering rare or endangered species, along with many other species that could potentially disrupt the ecosystem.
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Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture (Kazuyoshi Sako)
The Nuclear Regulation Authority effectively halted Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s plan to restart a reactor at its nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture after finding “shoddy” repairs to the porous security situation at the site.
“We are keeping TEPCO’s move toward the restart on hold in our continuing series of inspections until the company is allowed to start commercial operation of the reactor,” Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the NRA, said on March 17.
In a preliminary assessment, the NRA on March 16 rated TEPCO’s preparedness for protecting nuclear material at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant at the bottom of a four-level scale. Such preparations must be in place to protect against terrorist attacks, sabotage and other potential crises.
Work is under way to decommission the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Feb. 1. (Shinnosuke Ito)
Delays have long been common in the decommissioning of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but one recent postponement carried special significance.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. in December said work to remove melted nuclear fuel from the three destroyed reactors would be delayed by about a year.
The retrieval process was supposed to start this year, marking a milestone in the formidable cleanup project.
It was one of the two paramount targets that the utility had refused to abandon despite its repeated tweaking of the decommissioning road map and the mountains of stumbling blocks it has faced.