The is a nuclear power plant located in the town of

Shika, Ishikawa is a town located in Hakui District, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 20,845 in 8090 households, and a population density of 84 persons per km2. The total area of the town is . Geography Shika occupies th ...

, Japan. It is owned and operated by the

Hokuriku Electric Power Company The Hokuriku Electric Power Company supplies power by a regulated monopoly to Toyama Prefecture, Ishikawa Prefecture, the northern part of Fukui Prefecture, and northwestern parts of Gifu Prefecture. It is often abbreviated within its area of ...

. It is on a site that is 1.6 km² (395 acres). The plant is currently not producing electricity in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Reactors on site

1999 criticality event

On June 18, 1999 during an inspection, an emergency control rod insertion was to be performed on Unit 1. One rod was to be inserted into the reactor, however, due to improper following of the procedure, instead of one rod inserting, 3 rods withdrew. For the next 15 minutes, the reactor was in a critical state (producing heat). This event was not revealed until March 15, 2007, since it was covered up in the records. Unit 1 remained shut down, pending judicial and bureaucratic evaluation. Immediately after the event was revealed, the president of the

was called to the

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry The or METI, is a ministry of the Government of Japan. It was created by the 2001 Central Government Reform when the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) merged with agencies from other ministries related to economic activities, ...

office and ordered to shut down the unit 1 reactor. This was not the same president as when the event happened in 1999. In April 2007 the event had been provisionally categorized as an INES level-2 incident. On June 5, 2007 the committee chairman of the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission inspected the control rod housing and drive mechanisms and evaluated that the event was due to cutting corners. He also concluded that the reactor operators at the time were under a lot of pressures from above, and simply punishing the operators would not be an effective deterrent for future accidents. One proposed measure was to have alarms automatically record when they go off so that records can not be altered. A lower court had ordered the entire plant to be shut down, but that decision was later overturned by

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most p ...

's high court. The utility put in a request to the Ishikawa prefectural government and the town of Shika for the restart of unit 1. The unit returned to power on May 11, 2009 and resumed commercial operation on May 13.

Construction of an anti-tsunami-wall

On Wednesday 5 October 2011 a start was made with the construction of a reinforced concrete wall, that should shield the reactors against a possible tsunami. The wall was designed 4 meters high and 700 meters long, 11 meters above sea level. This was done to comply with extra governmental instructions ordered after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Next to this a new drainage gate was to be installed to minimize damage to plant facilities in case seawater would be able to climb over the wall and would submerge the plant. Other emergency safety measures included the installing of an extra pump to cool the reactors with seawater and an extra power source to operate a valve for venting steam out of reactors. Construction should be completed by the end of March 2013.

Possible two active faults situated under the reactors

On 16 July 2012 research done by the Japanese government revealed the strong possibility that the S-1-fault beneath the power station might be

active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...

, raising doubts about the claim made by the company in 1997 that it is inactive. It is not allowed to build a nuclear reactor above an active quake fault. If these findings would be confirmed, the Shika power station could be labeled as sitting on premises ineligible for a nuclear power plant. The fault, which runs southeast to northwest within the premises—moved sometime after 130,000 to 120,000 years ago. A review of old excavation data did suggest the strong possibility, that S-1 could have been active in a relatively recent period. Considering the presence of another fault that lies beneath the No. 2 reactor, should the two faults move at the same time, it could put the power plant into danger.The Mainichi Shimbun (17 July 2012
Research shows Shika atomic plant may sit on active quake fault
A

Nuclear Regulation Authority The is an administrative body of the Cabinet of Japan established to ensure nuclear safety in Japan as part of the Ministry of the Environment. Established on September 19, 2012, its first head was Shunichi Tanaka. Background The NRA was for ...

draft report of March 2016 confirmed that the fault below unit 1 is likely to be active, and that two faults below unit 2 were possibly active.

References

External links

Ishikawa Prefecture Nuclear Emergency Plans 石川県原子力安全対策室
* ttp://www.rikuden.co.jp/ Hokuriku Electric Company 北陸電力
Information Regarding the 1999 Event 志賀原子力発電所１号機第５回定期検査期間中に発生した原子炉緊急停止について(PDF)Noto Hanto earthquake (Japan)
{{Nuclear power in Japan 1980s establishments in Japan Buildings and structures in Ishikawa Prefecture Nuclear power stations in Japan Nuclear power stations using advanced boiling water reactors Shika, Ishikawa