TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s Kansai Electric Power has decided to take steps towards building a new nuclear power plant, the first such move since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.
Kansai Electric said in a statement posted on its website that the newspaper report was not what the company had announced, adding nothing concrete has been decided.
Nikkei said that Kansai Electric will soon announce the resumption of geological and other surveys, aimed at the construction of a new facility, on the site of its Mihama nuclear power plant on the Sea of Japan coast.
The surveys originally began in 2010, but were suspended after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Nikkei added.
It said it would likely take some 20 years from the surveys to commercial operation because of layers of regulatory and safety checks.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
