The year 2019 is drawing to a close without any nuclear power reactor idled since the 2011 Fukushima disaster being reactivated. Reactor No. 1 at the Takahama nuclear power plant operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. was initially expected to restart by the year's end, but work on additional safety features took longer than planned. The power company also was engulfed in a scandal over questionable ties with a now-deceased influential figure in the host town of Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, who for years had been giving money and expensive gifts to Kepco executives while also serving as an adviser to and receiving fees from local businesses on contract for Kepco's nuclear power business — an issue that shed light on the murky relations between nuclear power plant operators and host municipalities.
Since nuclear plants across Japan were shut down in the wake of the triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding's Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011, decisions have been made to decommission 21 reactors across the nation (mostly aging units but also including the reactors at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants), or roughly 40 percent of the total.
Power companies meanwhile applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for approval of their plans to restart a total of 27 reactors under new safety regulations introduced in 2013. However, the NRA has so far given the nod for restarting only 15 of them, of which just nine at five nuclear power plants have actually been put back online. Even among the plants that have been reactivated, up to seven reactors run by three utilities are expected to be shut down again — starting next spring with reactor No. 1 at Kyushu Electric's Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture — as they fail to meet the NRA's deadline for completing work to defend the plants against terrorism attacks, which was mandated under the 2013 regulations.