Plans for a nuclear power plant at Maki in Niigata prefecture have been abandoned by the Tohoku Electric Power Company. The move came less than a month after three of the country's other electric power companies said that they were postponing a separate nuclear project.

The decision to scrap the 825MW Maki boiling water reactor project was announced by Tohoku Electric Power on Dec 24 after the country's Supreme Court ruled against residents of Maki city who were in favor of the project. The residents had brought a civil lawsuit against the mayor and 23 residents of Maki after the mayor's September 1999 sale of municipally-owned land forming part of the site of the planned plant to residents opposed to the project.

Following the court ruling on Dec 18, Niigata governor Ikuo Hirayama had said that he believed that the project was no longer viable and asked Tohoku Electric Power to issue a statement about the future of the project by the end of 2003. As a result, Tohoku Electric Power made its decision to cancel the project at the extraordinary board meeting held on Dec 24.

Announcing the cancellation of the project, Tohoku Electric Power said that it had already spent around Yen30.5-bil ($285-mil) in developing the project. This included the cost of buying over 96% of the land required for the nuclear plant and the payment of compensation to special interest groups including the local fishermen's association. The Maki project has been under consideration for around three decades, and was included in Japan's national power development plan. The plant was scheduled to enter operation during the fiscal year ending April 2013.

The project had faced consistent opposition. About 60% of local residents had voted against the project in a referendum in 1996.

The decision came less than a month after three of the country's other ten electric power companies reviewed their plans to build a nuclear power complex at Suzu in Ishikawa prefecture and decided to postpone the project. Industry analysts believe that that 2,700MW scheme being developed by a consortium comprising the Kansai Electric Power, Chubu Electric Power and Hokuriku Electric Power is unlikely to be revived (PiA 392/3).

The Suzu project was first announced in 1986 and was to have comprised two 1,350MW reactors on the coast of the Noto Peninsula. However, the three developers were concerned that the high-cost project could become a stranded asset as the Japanese power market is progressively liberalized.

The setbacks suffered by the Maki and Suzu projects represent a fresh blow for Japan's beleaguered nuclear power industry. Opposition to nuclear power projects hit new heights in the second half of 2002 and throughout 2003 because of the scandal over the Tokyo Electric Power Company's past misreporting of voluntary safety tests.

This story was published in Platts Power in Asia.