In Japan, a nuclear reactor which had restarted less than a week ago, after an interruption of more than 13 years, had to be shut down again due to an equipment problem.

Reactor number two at the Onagawa nuclear power plant was returned to service on October 29 and it is hoped that it will start producing electricity and be connected to the grid in November.

Commercial operations have had been planned which will begin on December 25 from reactor number two.

The turbine started on Friday, which means less than three days of resumption of operations.

According to a report from Associated Press (AP), the reactor had to be shut down Monday morning due to equipment problems.

Problems in the number two reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant

A report of The Japan Times quotes Tohoku Electric Power Company said the shutdown was the result of problems with a measuring instrument.

He other states that the electricity supplier shut down operation of the reactor to allow it to discover the root cause of the problem.

On a reassuring note, the company clarified that no radioactive material was leaked due to the problems at the plant.

THE P.A. report also mentions that the closure was carried out to address safety concerns for those working at the facility and residents in the area.

There is no major cause for concern at the moment, according to the company operating the plant.

However, the company has not yet announced a date for resuming operations.

Japan’s nuclear power plants

It is worth noting that the Onagawa nuclear power plant is only 100 kilometers from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and, unlike its neighbor, survived the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Onagawa plant has three reactors and all of them survived the tsunami waves that hit the plant.

Following the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan closed all 54 of its commercial nuclear power plants. This is partly due to the devastation caused to the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

After several years of hiatus, Japan has begun to reopen its nuclear power plants to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Reactor number two at the Onagawa nuclear power plant was the 13^th nuclear reactor to reopen in the country after the 2011 shutdown.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and only now first piece of melted nuclear fuel had been recovered.

A remote-controlled robot has successfully recovered the first piece of melted nuclear fuel from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The room will now be analyzed to assess how the radioactive materials on the site have degraded over time.

It is the first time the fuel has been evaluated since the 2011 meltdown and the latest in a series of robotic explorations of the reactor in recent years. The robot was sent into the reactor under the instructions of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant.