Japan Ready To Resurrect World’s Biggest Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Meltdown

Japan may reopen the world’s largest nuclear power plant nearly 15 years after the country shuttered its reactors following the Fukushima disaster, according to multiple reports.

Over some local protests, the Niigata prefectural assembly voted to reopen the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on Monday, according to multiple reports. The plant was among 54 reactors taken offline after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Though no deaths have resulted from the Fukushima disaster, over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate amid a lengthy cleanup process. The assembly’s vote means that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which also operated the Fukushima plant, can restart one of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s seven reactors.

“We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident and ensuring Niigata residents never experience anything similar,” said TEPCO spokesperson Masakatsu Takata, according to Reuters.

As Japan pivots from importing fossil fuels and weighs a growing artificial intelligence (AI) appetite, TEPCO hopes to resurrect reactor 6 at the plant in January, according to a local Japanese outlet.

Notably, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced a nearly $1 billion loan to help restart a reactor on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

“One of the biggest challenges American people [have] faced over the last several years has been the rising price of electricity,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright told reporters on Nov. 18. “We want to bring as much net addition of dispatchable, reliable electricity onto the grid to stop these price rises in electricity and increase American capacity to generate reliable electricity, so we can reshore manufacturing in our country, and we can stay ahead in the AI race.”