Japan’s Tepco to Decommission Second, Undamaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Tokyo Electric Power plans to scrap its Fukushima Daini nuclear station,which is located a few miles south of the bigger Fukushima Daiichi plant where three reactors melted down in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami.

Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tepco, as the company is called, will visit the governor of Fukushima prefecture to convey the plan and its board will formally approve the decision later this month.

Three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, which had six reactors and is located about 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of Fukushima Daini, suffered meltdowns after the giant March 2011 earthquake and tsunami shut down the plant’s cooling systems.

The Daini station also came close to a disaster, but retained enough backup power to keep cooling going. Successive Fukushima governors have called for it to be scrapped.

It will also leave Japan with 33 reactors, compared with 54 before the disaster: Many operators decided to scrap older units  that would cost too much to meet new safety standards imposed after the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl in 1986.