Japan Votes to Restart World's Biggest Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Fukushima Meltdown (cnn.com)
- Reference: 0180462883
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/27/0510206/japan-votes-to-restart-worlds-biggest-nuclear-plant-15-years-after-fukushima-meltdown
- Source link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/22/asia/japan-nuclear-reactor-restart-kashiwazaki-kariwa-intl-hnk
But this week Japanese authorities "have approved a decision to restart the world's biggest nuclear power plant," [1]reports CNN , "which has sat dormant for more than a decade following the Fukushima nuclear disaster."
> Despite nerves from many local residents, the Niigata prefectural assembly, home to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, approved a bill on Monday that clears the way for utility company Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to restart one of the plant's seven reactors. The company plans to bring the No. 6 reactor back online around January 20, Japan's public broadcaster [2]NHK reported ...
>
> Following the [2011] disaster, Japan shut down all 54 of its nuclear power stations including Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which sits in the coastal and port region of Niigata about 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Tokyo on Japan's main island of Honshu. Japan has since restarted 14 of the 33 nuclear reactors that remain operable, according to the World Nuclear Association. The Niigata plant will be the first to reopen under the operation of TEPCO, the company that ran the Fukushima Daiichi power station. It has been trying to reassure residents of the restart plan is safe...
>
> About 60-70% of Japan's power generation comes from imported fossil fuels, which cost the country about 10.7 trillion yen ($68 billion) last year alone... Japan is the world's fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, after China, the United States, India and Russia, according to the International Energy Agency. But it has committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, and renewable energy was at the center of its latest energy plan published earlier this year, with a push for greater investments in solar and wind. The country's energy demands are also expected to increase in the coming years due to a boom in energy-hungry data centers that power AI infrastructure. To achieve its energy and climate goals, Japan aims to double the share of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 20% by 2040...
>
> On its website, TEPCO said Kashiwazaki-Kariwa had undergone multiple inspections and upgrades and that the company had learned "the lessons of Fukushima." The company said new seawalls and watertight doors would provide "stronger protection against tsunamis" and that mobile generators and more fire trucks would be on hand for "cooling support" in an emergency. It also said the plant now had "upgraded filtering systems designed to control the spread of radioactive materials."
A survey published by the prefecture in October "found 60% of residents did not think conditions for the restart had been met," [3]reports Reuters , adding that "Nearly 70% were worried about TEPCO operating the plant."
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/22/asia/japan-nuclear-reactor-restart-kashiwazaki-kariwa-intl-hnk
[2] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20251218_04/
[3] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/japan-prepares-restart-worlds-biggest-nuclear-plant-15-years-after-fukushima-2025-12-21/
wait - what? (Score:3)
The post title contains: "Japan Votes to Restart Fukushima Nuclear Plant" None of the three linked articles in the post body talk about restarting the Fukishima nuclear plant. So what is this? sloppy editor, hallucinating LLM, both, other?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Clickbait headline.
Re: (Score:2)
Corrected.
15 years? (Score:2)
Get off my lawn.
The greatest fallacy about deactivated nuke plants (Score:3)
Is that the atoms stop splitting. They don't.
Here in Massachusetts, the Pilgrim nuclear plant was "decomissioned" in 2018. The treehuggers rejoiced as if all the bad scary radiation was going to go away.
It didn't.
Since Harry Reid killed the Yucca Mountain waste storage site back in the early 2010s, all deactivated plants simply take the fuel rods out of their reactors and store them on-site where they're still decomposing into fission byproducts (if a bit more slowly) but instead of dumping their heat somewhere useful like a steam turbine, it's just going out into space.
You can mod me off topic (Score:2)
But you can't have nuclear power unless you fix the social issues. Because we can't fix the technical problems.
You can't have nuclear power until you have either reactors that do not produce waste and can be run without maintenance at high risk or you fix the social issues.
I don't expect there to be any magic technology that makes reactors safe to run without maintenance and without any dangerous waste products.
So if you actually did want nuclear reactors instead of just bitching on a website th
Re: The greatest fallacy about deactivated nuke pl (Score:1)
Everything does. Do you tear down your house and buy a new one every 20 or 30 years or do you just replace the roof shingles like you're supposed to?
Re: (Score:3)
> Do you tear down your house and buy a new one every 20 or 30 years
Funnily enough that's exactly what Japan does.
"60% of residents did not think" (Score:2)
This is the problem
People who know nothing and base their opinion on fear
Why not (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as the upgrades have been put in place to make sure it won't ever happen again then I don't see why it would be a bad thing. There should probably be considerable oversight to make sure there's no missed opportunities for more safety.
Re: Why not (Score:2)
If they can't be fixed or mitigated enough to be moot then I certainly understand why the residents are rightfully concerned.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem wasn't the reactors being near sea level, the problem was the emergency generators being in the damned basement.
So in simplistic terms the only thing they need to not fail in the specific way they did, is some sturdy stilts.
The other ways a high pressure water cooled reactor can fail, still exist.
Because none of the social problems are solved (Score:2)
First you need to understand that the city of Fukushima was evacuated for 10 years and everyone there lost everything except what they could carry.
Next you need to understand that the disaster was completely preventable if the CEOs had done what the engineers had been telling them to do for years.
Finally you need to understand that the CEOs got away Scott free and the public at large blamed the engineers. There were no consequences and there have been no changes to the regulatory framework that allo
Re: (Score:2)
> I'll remind you that not only did the CEOs of TEP get away with causing Fukushima
Holy shit a CEO managed to cause a massive natural disaster that overwhelmed mitigation barriers? I absolutely would let the man get away with that. If he can control the environment to that extent there's no telling what he would do if we threaten him with prison time.
Re: (Score:2)
"The technical problems involving nuclear power have long since been solved. The social problems have not."
I have no doubt that the technical problems involving nuclear power have long since been solved. But as long as those plants are run by businesses and corporations looking to minimize costs and maximize profits, the "social" problems will never see solutions.
Which in turn probably means those plants will never, ever be safe.
Re: (Score:2)
Next you need to understand that the disaster was completely preventable if the CEOs had done what the engineers had been telling them to do for years.
No it was not.
The earthquake destroyed the internal piping.
It has nothing to do with "emergency power engines under water"