Japan PM orders nuclear restart: Reports

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Japan ordered nuclear reactors back online Saturday, defying public sentiment against atomic power following last year's meltdowns at Fukushima sparked by the quake-tsunami, reports said.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, seeking to head off a summer energy crunch, told Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) to re-fire two idled reactors at its Oi plant serving the industrial heartland of western Japan, the Jiji news agency and the Nikkei online news said.

Noda on Saturday received approval for the restarts from Issei Nishikawa, the pro-nuclear power governor of central Fukui prefecture, which hosts the plant.

The premier then met three ministers -- the minister of economy, trade and industry, the minister in charge of the nuclear accident and the chief cabinet secretary.

"Now that we have the approval from the autonomous body where the reactors are relocated, the four ministers (including Noda) concerned made the decision to restart the reactors," Noda said, according to Jiji and Nikkei.

Nishikawa told the prime minister he was happy with the restarts after he received safety assurances on Friday from the operator.

"We reached the agreement to help stabilise livelihoods and industry in Kansai (western Japan)," Nishikawa told reporters.

The controversial move comes amid fears that electricity demand will outstrip supply as temperatures soar and air-conditioners get cranked up, further crimping Japan's wobbly economic recovery.

The nod from Nishikawa was the final link in the chain for Noda, who has become a vocal advocate of nuclear power being brought back into the energy mix for resource-poor but electricity-hungry Japan.

The country's 50 working reactors -- which along with the four crippled units at Fukushima contributed around a third of Japan's electricity before the disaster -- have been offline since the last one was shuttered in early May.

Public opposition in the aftermath of the tsunami-sparked meltdowns at Fukushima in March 2011 left Japan's political classes tip-toeing around the issue of restarts.

Radiation was spread over homes and farmland in a large area of northern Japan when the massive tsunami swamped cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi.