Nagoya, Sept. 25 (Jiji Press)–Chubu Electric Power Co. said Friday that it has withdrawn its applications for Nuclear Regulation Authority safety screening required to restart the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan. The power utility announced the move following revelations of fraud involving earthquake-related data. According to the NRA, this is the first time that a screening application has been withdrawn due to misconduct. The withdrawal effectively resets the screening process to the stage before the application was filed, leaving no clear prospect for restarting the reactors. Chubu Electric filed applications for screening of the two reactors in 2014 and 2015. During the screening process, the company cherry-picked earthquake motion data to determine quake-resistant design standards, while making it appear as though it had used an appropriate methodology. Since May last year, when NRA officials began interviewing company officials following a report from an external whistleblower, it has also been revealed that the company attempted to hide the misconduct, including by overwriting cherry-picked data. Chubu Electric announced the misconduct this January and commissioned an investigative committee to probe the facts, analyze the causes and recommend recurrence prevention measures. The committee submitted a report on Sept. 14, finding that the company had developed its own rationale for dismissing findings that could stand in the way of achieving the goal of an early restart of the reactors. Subsequently, Chubu Electric said that President Kingo Hayashi and Chairman Satoru Katsuno would step down, and that it would withdraw its NRA screening application. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
