Japan Lifts Ban on World's Biggest Nuclear Plant

Japan's nuclear power regulator lifted an operational ban on Tokyo Electric Power's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant two years ago, allowing it to work towards gaining local permission to restart, as reported by Yuka Obayashi and Kantaro Komiya for Reuters

In 2021, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) barred Tepco from operating Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, its only operable atomic power station, due to safety breaches. I Photo: IAEA Imagebank

Tepco has been eager to bring the world's largest atomic power plant back online to reduce operating costs, but a resumption still requires consent from the local governments of Niigata prefecture, Kashiwazaki city, and Kariwa village, where it is located.

The exact timing of this approval is unknown. With a capacity of 8,212 megawatts (MW), the plant has been offline since 2012 after the Fukushima disaster a year earlier led to the shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan at the time.

In 2021, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) barred Tepco from operating Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, its only operable atomic power station, due to safety breaches, including the failure to protect nuclear materials and missteps that saw an unauthorized staff member accessing sensitive areas of the plant.

Citing improvements in the safety management system, the NRA on Wednesday lifted a corrective action order that had prevented Tepco from transporting new uranium fuel to the plant or loading fuel rods into its reactors—effectively blocking a resumption.

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