Local residents and anti-nuclear activists in Japan oppose the restart of one of the world’s biggest nuclear power plants and its operator’s plan to invest money in revitalizing the regional economy.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which also operated the nuclear power plant in Fukushima prior to the 2011 disaster, has planned for years to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant in the Niigata prefecture.
But the company faces backlash over its restart plans and proposal from August this year to “contribute monetarily to vitalizing the regional economy,” and invest in projects to contribute to improving safety and security.
TEPCO’s monetary proposal is for the creation of a $667 million (100 billion yen) fund for the benefit of Niigata prefecture, Nikkei Asia reported last week.
Anti-nuclear activists have slammed the proposal as a “bribery” of the local residents to accept the restart of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.
“This is a big step forward for Tepco because they really want to restart the plant and the scale of the offer shows that,” Hajime Matsukubo, secretary general of the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre, told This Week in Asia.
“But this is simply bribery,” Matsukubo added.
Opinion polls suggest that local residents are split on whether TEPCO should be allowed to restart the nuclear power plant.
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan closed all its nuclear power plants, and conducted rigorous safety checks and inspections.
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Since 2015, Japan has restarted 14 reactors, while 11 others are currently in the process of restart approval.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has been offline since 2012, while the Nuclear Regulation Authority in 2021 barred the plant’s operator, TEPCO, from operating the facility due to safety breaches.
The regulator lifted the operational ban on Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in December 2023, paving the way for the restart.
But the restart still needs the approvals of the Niigata prefecture, the city of Kashiwazaki, and the village of Kariwa to resume operations.
In an address to a committee at the Niigata prefectural assembly this week, TEPCO president Tomoaki Kobayakawa said the operator aims to restart reactor No 6 and would consider decommissioning reactors No 1 and No 2.
The backlash against the restart of one of the biggest nuclear power plants in the world highlights Japan’s dilemma of how to ensure a stable energy supply while reducing emissions, as it has pledged. Restarting additional nuclear reactors would do the trick, but the country still faces negative public opinion and high concerns about safety, especially in the areas close to nuclear power plants.
Still, the share of fossil fuels in Japan’s power supply slumped to the lowest on record in the first half of 2025, as nuclear and solar electricity generation is growing.
Resource-poor Japan, a major importer of LNG, crude oil, and coal, saw its utility-scale electricity supply slump below 60% for the first time between January and June, according to data from clean energy think tank Ember cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.
At the same time, low-carbon electricity supply – nuclear and renewables – saw the highest level in more than a decade, as Japan is slowly re-opening some nuclear capacities after they were closed for safety checks following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
As part of its decarbonization plans, Japan has made a U-turn in nuclear energy policy and plans to rely more on nuclear reactors for its power supply in the coming decades. The country looks to have 20% of its electricity supply coming from nuclear power by 2040, up from below 10% now.
Before the Fukushima meltdown in 2011, nuclear energy accounted for about 30% of Japan’s electricity mix.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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