User:Geofferybard/Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant

The Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant (Tōkai genshi-ryoku hatsuden-sho) was Japan's first nuclear power plant. It was built in the early 1960s to the British Magnox design, and generated power from 1966 until it was decommissioned in 1998. A second nuclear plant, built at the site in the 1970s, was the first in Japan to produce over 1000 MW of electricity, and still produces power as of 2009. The site is located in Tōkai, Ibaraki|Tokai in the Naka District, Ibaraki|Naka District in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan and is operated by the Japan Atomic Power Company. The total site area amounts to 0.76 km2 (188 acres) with 0.33 km2, or 43% of it, being green area that the company is working to preserve.

Unit 1
File:TOKAI-1 NPP.JPG|thumb|Tōkai I This reactor was built based on British developed Magnox technology. Unit 1 will be the first nuclear reactor to be decommissioned in Japan. The experience in decommissioning this plant is expected to be of use in the future when more Japanese plants are decommissioned. Below is a brief time-line of the process.


 * March 31, 1998: operations cease
 * March 2001: last of the nuclear fuel moved off-site
 * October 4, 2001: decommissioning plan announced
 * December 2001: decommissioning begins, spent fuel pool is cleaned
 * 2003: turbine room and electric generator taken down
 * Late 2004: fuel moving crane dismantled
 * 2011: the reactor itself is dismantled

Unit 2
This Boiling Water Reactor was the first nuclear reactor built in Japan to produce over 1,000 MW of electricity. By some formalities in the paperwork, the unit is technically separate from the rest of the nuclear facilities at Tokai-mura, but it is managed with the rest of them and even shares the same front gate.

Incidents
Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami the number 2 reactor was one of eleven nuclear reactors nationwide SCRAM|to be shut down automatically. It was reported on 14 March that a cooling system pump for the number 2 reactor had stopped working. Japan Atomic Power Company stated that there was a second operational pump and cooling was working, but that two of three diesel generators used to power the cooling system were out of order.