When it comes to nuclear plants based on the same bwr system as fukushima daiichi reactors 6 and 7 of kashiwazaki kariwa tepco tōkai daini japan atomic power company and onagawa tōhoku. On 11 march 1997 the first nuclear related incident reported in tokaimura occurred in a dōnen power reactor and nuclear fuel development corporation nuclear fuel reprocessing plant it is sometimes referred to as the dōnen accident 動燃事故 dōnen jiko this facility rendered nuclear fuel by products inactive and safe to store through combination with asphalt. As of february 2019 of the 54 nuclear reactors in japan there were 42 operable reactors but only 9 reactors in 5 power plants were actually operating.
Nuclear power energy was a national strategic priority in japan. Prior to the 2011 tōhoku earthquake and tsunami japan had generated 30 of its electrical power from nuclear reactors and planned to increase that share to 40. Nuclear engineering international reported that all four units were successfully automatically shut down but emergency diesel generators at the site were out of order.
After the 2011 tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 march the cooling systems for three reactors numbers 1 2 and 4 of the fukushima ii fukushima dai ni nuclear power plant were compromised due to damage from the tsunami. The site is on japan s pacific coast in northeastern fukushima prefecture about 100 km 60 miles south of sendai. Fukushima accident also called fukushima nuclear accident or fukushima daiichi nuclear accident accident in 2011 at the fukushima daiichi number one plant in northern japan the second worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power generation.
However their spent fuel pools still required cooling. At the time of the tōhoku earthquake on 11 march 2011 reactors 4 5 and 6 were shut down in preparation for re fueling. The fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant comprised six separate boiling water reactors originally designed by general electric ge and maintained by the tokyo electric power company tepco.
