Japan reactor goes into automatic shutdown after cooling problem — “No reports of fire or smoke” — Plant at center of recent scandal to manipulate public opinion

In a fresh blow to public confidence, a reactor in southern Japan went into automatic shutdown on Tuesday because of problems with its cooling system, clouding the outlook for an imminent restart of the country’s idled nuclear plants. [...]

In fact, the governor of the southern prefecture of Saga had tentatively agreed to allow the restart of two idle reactors at Genkai in July. But he rescinded his permission when it was found that Kyushu Electric had tried to manipulate public opinion with fake e-mails to support a reopening of the reactors. [...]

Chihiro Kamisawa, researcher at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

“As we saw in Fukushima, cooling systems are central to the safety of nuclear reactors”
“We cannot take lightly the fact that there was also trouble with the cooling system at Genkai”
“It underscores the fact that safety problems riddle Japan’s reactors”