Around 60% of residents oppose the restart, while 37% support it, according to a survey conducted in September.<\/p>\n
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world\u2019s biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity, although just one reactor of seven is restarting.<\/p>\n
The facility was taken offline when Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011.<\/p>\n
However, resource-poor Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has voiced support for the energy source.<\/p>\n
Fourteen reactors, mostly in western and southern Japan, have resumed operation since the post-Fukushima shutdown under strict safety rules, with 13 running as of mid-January.<\/p>\n
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa unit would be the first run by TEPCO – which also operates the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, now being decommissioned – to restart since 2011.<\/p>\n
Nearly 15 years after the disaster, \u201cthe situation is still not under control in Fukushima, and TEPCO wants to revive a plant? For me, that\u2019s absolutely unacceptable,\u201d said Keisuke Abe, an 81-year-old demonstrator.<\/p>\n
\u2018Anxious and fearful\u2019<\/p>\n
The vast Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex has been fitted with a 15m-high tsunami wall, elevated emergency power systems and other safety upgrades.<\/p>\n
However, residents raised concerns about the risk of a serious accident, citing frequent cover-up scandals, minor accidents and evacuation plans they say are inadequate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s impossible to evacuate in an emergency,\u201d Chie Takakuwa, a 79-year-old resident of Kariwa, told AFP.<\/p>\n
On January 8, seven groups opposing the restart submitted a petition signed by nearly 40,000 people to TEPCO and Japan\u2019s Nuclear Regulation Authority.<\/p>\n
The petition said the plant sits on an active seismic fault zone and noted it was struck by a strong quake in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t remove the fear of being hit by another unforeseen earthquake,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking many people anxious and fearful so as to send electricity to Tokyo … is intolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the 2011 disaster – which killed around 18,000 people – nuclear power generated about a third of Japan\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n
String of scandals<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s nuclear industry has also faced a string of scandals and incidents in recent weeks, including data falsification by Chubu Electric Power to underestimate seismic risks.<\/p>\n
At Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, TEPCO said last weekend that an alarm system failed during a test.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafety is an ongoing process, which means operators involved in nuclear power must never be arrogant or overconfident,\u201d TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa said in an interview with the Asahi daily.<\/p>\n
Japan is the world\u2019s fifth-largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide, after China, the United States, India and Russia, and is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
Nearly 70% of its electricity in 2023 came from coal, gas and oil – a share Tokyo wants to slash to 30-40% over the next 15 years as it expands renewable energy and nuclear power.<\/p>\n
Under a plan approved by the Government in February, nuclear power will account for around a fifth of Japan\u2019s energy supply by 2040 – up from around 8.5% in the 2023-24 financial year.<\/p>\n
Japan still faces the daunting task of decommissioning the Fukushima plant, a project expected to take decades.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 60% of residents oppose the restart, while 37% support it, according to a survey conducted in September.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6751,3471,6326,138,10709,127,48803,1888,2383,1759,1036,111,139,603,69,142984,44355,97266,4885,10112,530,67346,142983,6302,3048,7811,223,2044,1865,17450],"class_list":["post-244152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-6751","tag-among","tag-biggest","tag-business","tag-concerns","tag-despite","tag-disaster","tag-first","tag-fukushima","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nuclear","tag-nz","tag-offline","tag-operator","tag-persistent","tag-plant","tag-power","tag-residents","tag-restart","tag-restarting","tag-safety","tag-said","tag-since","tag-the","tag-time","tag-today","tag-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}