Japan with one nuclear reactor after shutdown

Japan: Japan was left with only one working nuclear reactor today after Tokyo Electric Power Company shuttered its final generator for scheduled safety checks. The vast utility’s entire stocks of 17 reactors are now idle, including three units that suffered a meltdown when the tsunami hit Fukushima. This is in the face of a spike in electricity demand over the hot and humid summer. Only one of Japan’s 54 units — in northernmost Hokkaido — is still working, and that is scheduled to be shut down for maintenance work in May.

Japan’s formerly-trusted nuclear power industry lost public confidence when the tsunami of last March knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima, sending three reactors into meltdowns. Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry Yukio Edano has said the government will not introduce a summer cap on the use of electricity nor the rolling blackouts that were carried out last year after the nuclear accident.