The nation took the final step to allow the world’s largest nuclear power plant to resume operations with a regional vote, a watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220km northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Since then, Japan has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, as it tries to wean itself off imported fossil fuels.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which ran the doomed Fukushima plant.
Yesterday, Niigata prefecture’s assembly passed a vote of confidence on Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi, who backed the restart last month, effectively allowing for the plant to begin operations again.
“This is a milestone, but this is not the end,” Hanazumi told reporters after the vote. “There is no end in terms of ensuring the safety of Niigata residents.”
While lawmakers voted in support of Hanazumi, the assembly session, the last for the year, exposed the community’s divisions over the restart, despite new jobs and potentially lower electricity bills.
“This is nothing other than a political settlement that does not take into account the will of the Niigata residents,” an assembly member opposed to the restart told fellow lawmakers as the vote was about to begin.
Outside, over 300 protesters stood holding banners reading “No Nukes”, “We oppose the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa” and “Support Fukushima”.
“I am truly angry from the bottom of my heart,” Kenichiro Ishiyama, a 77-year-old protester from Niigata city, said after the vote. “If something was to happen at the plant, we would be the ones to suffer the consequences.”
Even Niigata Governor Hanazumi hopes that Japan will eventually be able to reduce its reliance on nuclear power. “I want to see an era where we don’t have to rely on energy sources that cause anxiety,” he said last month.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s total capacity is 8.2 gigawatts (GW), enough to power a few million homes. The pending restart would bring one 1.36GW unit online next year and start another one with the same capacity around 2030.
Yesterday’s vote was seen as the final hurdle before Tepco restarts the first reactor, which alone could boost electricity supply to the Tokyo area by 2%, Japan’s Trade Ministry has estimated.
Despite its shrinking population, Japan expects energy demand to rise over the coming decade due to a boom in power-hungry AI data centres.
To meet those needs, and its decarbonisation commitments, it has set a target of doubling the share of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 20% by 2040. — Reuters
