Japan is considering putting the huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant back into service.
After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan decided to phase out nuclear power. A choice that proved to be financially painful, with this technology providing nearly 25% of the country’s electricity production at the time, compared to 6% today, forcing the country to increase its energy imports to make up the difference. . But Tokyo no longer wants to pay so much for its electricity supply, and is turning again to atom
A power plant with multiple problems
Japan could well be one of the great nuclear nations of the 21ste century. At the beginning of the month, the country inaugurated the largest Tokamak in the world, a reactor dedicated to nuclear fusion research. And its efforts will not stop at research, because the Land of the Rising Sun also wants to use technology again to produce electricity.
And in this area, it will turn to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant, located in Niigata prefecture. The country’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority has just lifted its “corrective action order”, which had prevented the transport and loading of fuel into the power plant for a decade.
It should be noted that the site had suffered several problems even before the Fukushima incident. In 2007, it had to undergo reinforcement work after a powerful earthquake, while in 2002, the discovery of fraudulent security reports led to its shutdown.
Japan needs nuclear power
However, given the capabilities of the site, its relaunch could be a significant asset for the country. Because the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant has a power of 8.2 gigawatts with its 7 reactors, which could potentially provide the consumption of 16 million homes. In operation, it would quite simply be the largest power plant in the world, ahead of the now well-known Ukrainian power plant of Zaporizhia.
Japan is also one of the twenty countries which followed France’s call during Cop 28, a call which calls for a three-fold increase in global nuclear production capacity. At the national level, Japan wants to increase the share of nuclear power in its electricity production to 20 to 22% by 2030.
Source : Le Figaro
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