Tokyo Electric Power Co. will postpone the debut of a contentious plutonium-based fuel at a Niigata Prefecture nuclear plant due to local opposition, Tepco President Nobuya Minami told reporters Friday.
Tepco had planned to use plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel in the No. 3 reactor of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which straddles the towns of Kariwa and Kashiwazaki in Niigata Prefecture, hoping to start the project as early as possible.
However, Kariwa residents voted against the plan to use MOX fuel in the reactor in a May 27 plebiscite, the country's first such vote on the so-called pluthermal project.