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Kyushu Electric to Spend $5.9 Billion on New Reactor (Update1)

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Kyushu Electric Power Co., the monopoly power supplier to Japan's southwestern island of Kyushu, will spend 540 billion yen ($5.9 billion) to build a third nuclear reactor at its Sendai station.

The Fukuoka City-based utility today submitted a proposal to the governments of Satsuma Sendai City and Kagoshima Prefecture, the company said in a statement filed to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Construction of the 1,590-megawatt reactor is slated to begin in 2013 and operations will start by March 2020.

Kyushu Electric wants nuclear power to account for about half of its output, compared with 41 percent in the year ended March 2008. Japan, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, is boosting nuclear power generation to strengthen security of energy supplies and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

A feasibility study that started in 2003 and completed last month showed that it was environmentally viable to add the reactor, Kyushu Electric said in the statement.

The project is aimed at boosting electricity production from nuclear generation and reducing output of carbon dioxide blamed for global warming, it said.

Combined with its Genkai nuclear station in Saga Prefecture, also on Kyushu island, the utility operates a total of six reactors.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2006 compiled a report dubbed ``the Nuclear Nation Plan,'' stating its initiative to boost nuclear power generation.

Kyushu Electric's proposed reactor will be the 11th project in Japan that is awaiting construction, according to the trade ministry.

Japan has 55 reactors now and is the third largest generator of nuclear power behind the U.S. and France.

The world needs to build 32 new nuclear reactors and 17,500 wind-power turbines each year to halve emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency said last year.