TOKYO, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO) on Monday said it may consider scrapping one or more reactors at its nuclear power plant in Kashiwazaki in Niigata Prefecture, in Japan's Chubu region.
The decommissioning is one of the conditions set by the city of Kashiwazaki if TEPCO wishes to restart two of the plant's seven reactors.
The mayor of Kashiwazaki Masahiro Sakurai has said approval to restart the plant's Nos. 6 and 7 reactors is dependent on the decommissioning.
TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told the mayor on Monday that steps toward decommissioning some or all of the Nos. 1 to 5 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, located northwest of Tokyo, could start within five years after bringing the idled reactors back online.
Kobayakawa added, however, that for the time being, it is necessary to maintain the Nos. 1 to 5 reactors, but said TEPCO will consider scrapping one or more of them once it can secure enough power from other sources with a limited impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
He said the company is looking into securing power from the use of offshore wind and other forms of renewable energy.
"TEPCO has given me the maximum reply it could think of now," Sakurai was quoted by local media as saying, in response to TEPCO suggesting it would consider scrapping one or more reactors.
TEPCO, however, did not commit to an exact number of reactors it would scrap, or give a clear pledge that it would do so, but, rather, said it would consider the notion of decommissioning one or more of the reactors.
Sakurai had previously insisted TEPCO provide a clear roadmap for which and how the reactors would be scrapped, with the plan to be submitted this year.
TEPCO failed to submit the plan in July, however, as the embattled utility was lambasted by Sakurai after misinforming the city of a malfunction at the plant after a powerful earthquake hit the region on June 18.
While TEPCO has said it was hoping to restart the Nos. 6 and 7 reactors and to keep the Nos. 1 to 5 reactors for its future business, all seven reactors at the plant are currently offline following an earthquake that struck Niigata in 2007 and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture in 2011.
Sakurai has also called for the decommissioning of some of the reactors at the plant owing to the fact that all seven of them are located in a single area, meaning that an accident such as the one that occurred at TEPCO's Daiichi plant in Fukushima could easily spread to the other reactors.
