Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant
| Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant | |
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The Hamaoka NPP from the viewing platform at the plant museum
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 Location of Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in Japan
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| Country | Japan |
| Coordinates | 34°37′25″N 138°08′33″E / 34.62361°N 138.14250°ECoordinates: 34°37′25″N 138°08′33″E / 34.62361°N 138.14250°E |
| Construction began | June 10, 1971 |
| Commission date | March 17, 1976 |
| Operator(s) | Chubu Electric Power Company |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Cooling source | Enshū-nada Sea |
| Cooling towers | no |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 3504 MW (3 reactors) |
| Units decommissioned | 1380 MW (2 reactors) |
The Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant (浜岡原子力発電所 Hamaoka Genshiryoku Hatsudensho?, Hamaoka NPP) is a nuclear power plant located in the city of Omaezaki in Shizuoka Prefecture, on Japan's east coast, 200 km south-west of Tokyo. It is managed by the Chubu Electric Power Company. There are five units contained at a single site with a net area of 1.6 km2 (395 acres). A sixth unit began construction on December 22, 2008. On January 30, 2009, Hamaoka-1 and Hamaoka-2 were permanently shut down.
On 6 May 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan requested the plant be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher was estimated 87% likely to hit the area within the following 30 years. Kan wanted to avoid a possible repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. On 9 May 2011, Chubu Electric decided to comply with the government request. In July 2011, a mayor in Shizuoka Prefecture and a group of residents filed a lawsuit seeking the decommissioning of the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant permanently.
Hamaoka is built directly over the subduction zone near the junction of two tectonic plates, and a major Tōkai earthquake is said to be overdue. The possibility of such a shallow magnitude 8.0 earthquake in the Tokai region was pointed out by Kiyoo Mogi in 1969, 7 months before permission to construct the Hamaoka plant was sought, and by the Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction (CCEP) in 1970, prior to the permission being granted on December 10, 1970. As a consequence, Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a former member of a government panel on nuclear reactor safety, claimed in 2004 that Hamaoka was 'considered to be the most dangerous nuclear power plant in Japan' with the potential to create a genpatsu-shinsai (domino-effect nuclear power plant earthquake disaster). In 2007, following the 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake, Dr Mogi, by then chair of Japan's Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction, called for the immediate closure of the plant.
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