Tokyo, Japan – Japan has cleared the final hurdle to restarting operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest nuclear power plant. This comes after approval by the Niigata prefectural parliament on Monday, marking a dramatic shift in Japanese energy policy 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is located 220 kilometers northwest of Tokyo. It was shut down as part of a broader shutdown of 54 reactors following the devastating earthquake and tsunami. These events triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, considered the worst nuclear accident in the world since Chernobyl.
This approval paves the way for Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the former operator of the crippled Fukushima plant, to restart the first of seven reactors on January 20. This reactor will have a capacity of 1.36 gigawatts, as part of a plan to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels.
The plant has a total capacity of 8.2 gigawatts. This is enough to supply electricity to millions of homes. There are plans to bring an additional unit online by 2030, joining the 14 reactors that Japan has restarted out of its 33 operational reactors.
