Hamaoka No. 4 shut down; No. 5 to follow

Chubu Electric Power Company has shut down Hamaoka No. 4. The plant began reducing power at 3:30 AM Friday and the plant was off the grid at 10 AM. No. 5 plant is to follow on Saturday.

This is the first plant in Japan shut down on Japanese government request, bypassing any official safety agency reviews, solely on suspected seismic risk.

9:40 PM Eastern Friday 5/13
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

UPDATE 9:44 PM Eastern Friday 5/13: On the wire right now is the report that Hamaoka No. 5 plant has also been shut down.

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Hamaoka will shut down after all

Chubu Electric Company's board has agreed to shut down No. 4 and No. 5 plants at Hamaoka, and to not restart No. 3 which is under inspection. We don't have a time for the shutdown yet.

5:50 AM Eastern Monday 5/9
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

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Chubu Electric / Hamaoka details....

The Japanese Government request to Chubu Electric Power to shut down all reactors at the Hamaoka site results from studies showing that the plant sits above a focal point for what has apparently been a long-predicted earthquake which hasn't happened yet but could hit 8.0 magnitude and could occur within 30 years.

Chubu Electric Power has announced it will agree to the request and shut down the operating plants No. 5 and No. 6 at the site, and not restart No. 3 plant. The earliest two plants at the site are already in the midst of decommissioning.

There is the possibility that, after extensive studies and perhaps plant modifications if required that the three operable reactors at the site could restart. This seems probable, given the Japanese plants' known earthquake resistance. Keep in mind that the Fukushima plants survived an earthquake in excess of that for which they were designed, only to be inundated by the tsunami a short while later.

To our knowledge these are the first plants anywhere to be closed down after the Great East Japan Earthquake simply based on their proximity to known faults, or focal points for earthquake shock, or tsunami threat .. or really any natural disaster threat... without having actually experienced any casualty whatsoever.

3:55 PM Eastern Friday 5/6
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW

UPDATE Saturday 5/7 5:45 AM: Now, NHK is running a story saying the opposite; in other words, that Chubu Electric's board of directors has not yet decided to acquiesce to Naoto Kan's request to shut down the plants. Clearly this situation is fluid (as is the relationship apparently between government, agencies of that government, and utilities) and we'll keep watching to see which way the axe falls.

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