Work begins to restart No. 4 reactor at Oi plant

As workers cleaned pipes that lead to the turbines, they were closely observed by inspectors from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency

So, there there people who still believe Japan has an independent and competent nuclear safety agency?

JapanToday: Can we actually get verification that the reactor cooling water levels fell? Seems to contradict KEPCO's official statements saying it is a STATOR COOLING issue. A stator is the fixed portion of the steam turbine's electrical generator, and has nothing to do with the reactor, and in fact, is never in direct contact with reactor water.

As workers cleaned pipes that lead to the turbines, they were closely observed by inspectors from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

To Japanese "closely observed" means one guy pointed his finger at a worker cleaning the pipes and said, "よしっ！".

Eight inspectors will be stationed at an off-site emergency control center around the clock, the agency said.

Wouldn't they do their jobs better if they were ON sight?

A spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it will report anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small, at news conferences from now on.

Good to know.

Clemens SimonJun. 22, 2012 - 02:35PM JST

Good to know.

Wait until they start reporting every minor thing including someone tripping (occupational issues), switching to a secondary breaker in a random room because someone plugged in a hair drier, and a calculator running out of batteries.

I think people will grow accustomed to minor errors being reported that when something actually serious is reported, they simply won't care. Much like this issue about power generation steam turbine stator cooling water level making people not care when reactor pressure drops 5% in an hour during normal operation.

Work begins to restart No. 4 reactor at Oi plant

At this rate, soon work will start for all other remaining reactors in Japan

Rick KisaJun. 23, 2012 - 06:10AM JST

At this rate, soon work will start for all other remaining reactors in Japan

Hopefully yes. Japan cannot survive without them, since they can't continue to rely on coal, oil, and gas forever.