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15 years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan prepares to restart the world's largest nuclear power plant

2026-01-19 19:49:34Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant

Activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant has reached a peak: workers remove soil to widen a main road, while trucks arrive at its heavily guarded entrance.

A tall fence is topped with barbed wire, and at one resort, a police patrol car monitors beachgoers, one of the few places with a clear view of the reactors, framed by snow-capped Mount Yoneyama.

When all seven of its reactors are in operation, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa produces 8.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power millions of households. Covering 4.2 square kilometers of land in Niigata Prefecture, on the coast of the Sea of ??Japan, it is the largest nuclear power plant in the world.

Since 2012, however, the plant has not produced a single watt of energy, after it was shut down, along with dozens of other reactors, following the triple meltdown in March 2011 at Fukushima Daiichi, the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Located about 220 km northwest of Tokyo, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is managed by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the same company that ran the Fukushima plant when a powerful tsunami destroyed its protections, causing a power outage that led to the meltdown of three reactors and forced the evacuation of 160,000 people.

A few weeks before the 15th anniversary of the accident and tsunami that killed about 20,000 people along Japan's northeastern coast, Tepco is expected to defy local public opinion and restart one of the seven Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors.

On Monday, Tepco said it would postpone the restart, originally scheduled for the following day, after an alarm went off during an equipment test last weekend, according to public broadcaster NHK. The reactor is expected to be back online in the coming days, NHK added.

The restart of reactor No. 6, which could boost the Tokyo area's electricity supply by about 2%, would be a turning point in Japan's slow return to nuclear power, a strategy the government says will help the country meet emissions targets and strengthen energy security.

But for many of the 420,000 residents living within a 30km radius of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, who would have to evacuate in the event of a Fukushima-like incident, Tepco's return to nuclear production is fraught with risks.

Among them is Ryusuke Yoshida, whose home is less than 2.5km from the plant, in the quiet village of Kariwa. Asked what worries him most about the restart, the 76-year-old has a simple answer: “Everything,” he says, as waves crash on the shore, the reactors looming in the background.

"The evacuation plans are clearly ineffective," adds Yoshida, a ceramics manufacturer and member of a residents' association near the plant.

“When it snows in the winter, the roads get blocked, and many of the people who live here are elderly. What about them, and others who can't move freely? This is a human rights problem.”

The company says it has learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and earlier this year pledged to invest 100 billion yen (£470m) in Niigata prefecture over the next 10 years to win the support of residents.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, whose 6,000-strong staff has remained on duty throughout the long shutdown, has sea walls and watertight doors for stronger protection against tsunamis, while mobile diesel generators and a large fleet of fire engines are ready to provide water to cool the reactors in case of an emergency. Improved filtration systems have been installed to control the spread of radioactive materials.

“The core of the nuclear power business is ensuring safety above all else, and the understanding of local residents is a prerequisite,” says Tatsuya Matoba, a spokesman for Tepco.

That is the main hurdle that residents say Tepco has failed to overcome, after local authorities ignored calls for a prefectural referendum to determine the plant's future. In the absence of a vote, opponents of the restart point to polls showing clear opposition to bringing the reactor back online.

A survey conducted late last year showed that over 60% of residents within 30 km of the plant did not believe that the conditions for its restart had been met.

“We take the results of the prefectural opinion poll very seriously,” adds Matoba. “Gaining the understanding and trust of local residents is an ongoing process, requiring sincerity and continuous effort.”

Kazuyuki Takemoto, a member of the Kariwa village council, says seismic activity in this region of northwestern Japan makes it impossible to guarantee the safety of the plant.

“But there has been no proper discussion about this,” says Takemoto, 76. “They say there have been safety improvements since the Fukushima disaster, but I don’t think there is any valid reason for restarting the reactor. It’s beyond my understanding.”

'The priority must be protecting people's lives'

Just weeks before the planned restart, the nuclear industry drew fresh criticism after it emerged that Chubu Electric Power, a power company in central Japan, had falsified seismic risk data during a regulatory review, conducted ahead of a possible restart, of two reactors at its shuttered Hamaoka plant.

“When you see what happened to Hamaoka, do you really think it’s possible to trust Japan’s nuclear industry?” Takemoto says. “It used to be said that nuclear power was necessary, safe and cheap… Now we know that was an illusion.”

Adding to local concerns is the presence of seismic faults in and around the site, which suffered damage during a magnitude 6.8 offshore earthquake in July 2007, including a fire that broke out in a transformer. Three reactors that were operating at the time were automatically shut down.

The restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is a lucky gamble for the Japanese government, which has placed an ambitious return to nuclear generation at the center of its new energy policy as it strives to meet emissions targets and strengthen energy security.

Before the Fukushima disaster, 54 reactors were in operation, supplying about 30% of the country's power. Now, of the 33 operational reactors, only 14 are in service, while efforts to restart the others have faced strong local opposition.

Now, 15 years after the Fukushima meltdown, criticism of the country's "nuclear village," its operators, regulators and politicians, has shifted to this snowy coastal town.

Pointing to one of the many security cameras near the plant, Yoshida says the restart was forced on residents by the nuclear industry and its political allies. “Local authorities have surrendered in the face of enormous pressure from the central government,” he says.

“The priority of any government should be to protect people’s lives, but we feel like we’ve been cheated. Japan’s nuclear village is alive and well. You only have to look at what’s happening here to understand that.”/ The Guardian


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