Japan irons out computer glitch at nuclear plant

Japan irons out computer glitch at nuclear plant
REUTERS

TOKYO, JAN 2: Computer malfunctions at Japanese nuclear power plants, possibly connected with the Y2K bug, have all been cleared up and did not affect safety or power generation, company spokesmen said on Sunday.

Five different problems, most connected with data monitoring, emerged at four separate nuclear plants on Saturday, marring Japan's otherwise good performance in the millennium handover. But all had been solved by evening, a ministry official said on Sunday, adding that there were no new reports of any trouble.

Power company officials said they were still looking into the causes. "It is too early to say with certainty that this was Y2K-related," added a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO), Japan's biggest power utility.

At TEPCO's Fukushima number 2 nuclear plant north of Tokyo, data on the position of the rods used to control nuclear reactions was not sent to the appropriate computer screen even though the data was present in the computer.At no time was safety affected and theposition of the rods was verified by other means until the problem was corrected on Saturday afternoon, the TEPCO spokesman said.

Investigations found that the computer had reset its date to February 2036. Technicians corrected the date and operations returned to normal, the spokesman said.

The longest-running glitch was at the Shika nuclear power plant run by Hokuriku Electric Power, where problems were reported with a system used to send data on radiation emission and the state of the power plant to company headquarters. A Hokuriku spokesman said this was cleared up by Saturday afternoon. "There is the chance that this was Y2K-related, but we need to investigate further," he added.

An alarm for a system processing meteorological data at Tohoku Electric Power Co's Onagawa nuclear power plant prefecture also went off soon after midnight, but order was restored 10 minutes later with no disruptions.