TOKYO — Emergency support system data transfers from the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station’s No. 3, 4 and 5 reactors have stopped for reasons unknown, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said on Aug. 8.   The reactors at the Chubu Electric Power Co. plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, are all off-line, and there were no abnormalities detected following the data transfer….Read more

NHK reported that the Russian government officially decided on Tuesday to establish a company in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Russian Far East to take over the operation of the Sakhalin-2 offshore LNG drilling initiative in which two Japanese trading firms hold significant stakes. In a presidential decree signed in late June, the Russian government mandated that the two companies give notification….Read more

The Cabinet Office’s Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) on July 28 released its 2021 nuclear white paper on the current state of nuclear power usage. The paper stipulated that using nuclear power as an energy source is “one option” for achieving carbon neutrality.

Tokyu Land Corp. has announced that it will enter an offshore wind power generation project in Aomori Prefecture. The company has jointly established a special purpose company (SPC) with Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The new company aims to win a bid for an offshore wind power development project in Aomori Prefecture along the Sea of Japan. The….Read more

All national dailies wrote that Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. said on Tuesday that they have cut the value of their stakes in the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural gas project in the Russian Far East by a combined 217.7 billion yen ($1.7 billion) — Mitsui by 136.6 billion yen and Mitsubishi by 81.1 billion yen. They cited growing business uncertainty….Read more

By Nagata Takehiko   A month has passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order to transfer the operation of the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural gas development project, in which two Japanese trading firms have stakes, to a new Russian firm. Japan intends to retain its interests in the project, but the likelihood of Russia cutting the supply….Read more

On July 29, major solar power installation company West Holdings said Kyushu Railway [JR Kyushu] will set up solar power stations on a few dozen idle plots of land it owns along its rail tracks in fiscal 2023. The generated electricity will be purchased by Osaka Gas at a fixed price and sold to JR Kyushu’s stations and other facilities….Read more

Chugoku Shimbun   Forty years have passed since the town of Kaminoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture announced its bid to host a nuclear power plant. However, Chugoku Electric Power’s plan to build the Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Station has been stalled ever since preparation work was halted in the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima No. 1 meltdown.   Coupled with….Read more

By Nagata Takehiko   The joint statement released after the inaugural economic 2+2 included cooperation in energy security, but it is hard to conclude that Japan and the U.S. had in-depth discussions on the matter. They agreed to the importance of energy security that has come into the international spotlight following the Ukraine crisis, but they emphasize different agendas. The….Read more