From the AFP’s latest accounts, the reactor finally managed to reach a self-sustaining reaction, and is expected to start delivering electricity Wednesday.Įrica Ho is a contributor at TIME and the editor of Map Happy. Kansai Electric Power Company, which operates Ohi, has not made a public statement other than the message on its website explaining that a nuclear reaction was restarted Sunday afternoon. All of Japan’s active reactors have been offline since May 5, when the government decided to institute safety checks. The Ohi plant, has not been operating since it was shut down last year and is expected to help power the region’s cities. ( MORE: An Atomic Shadow: Life Inside a Japanese Nuclear Village) Since the Fukushima plant forced the evacuation of thousands of people last year, the government has started looking for more reliable energy options, including renewable sources. However, without the reactors, the country faces a serious power shortage the very real possibility of blackouts in some regions. “After experiencing the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how can Japan possibly want nuclear power?” “It’s a lie that nuclear energy is clean,” he told the Associated Press. Taisuke Kohno, a 41-year-old musician, planned to stay at the plant day and night. (AP pic) TOKYO: For the first time in more than a decade, a narrow majority of Japanese now support. ( MORE: At Edge of Japan’s Nuclear Zone, Residents Face an Uncertain Future)Īt the plant itself, located on Japan’s western coast near the city of Kyoto, police were called in to rein in hundreds of demonstrators. Aerial photo shows the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town in February 2021. Before the tsunami, nuclear energy powered approximately 30% of Japan’s power. According to the Associated Press, tens of thousands of people clamored outside Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s home last Friday, chanting “No to nuclear restarts.” Noda, who ordered the Ohi reactor be switched on, said that it was needed to sustain Japan’s energy supplies. The reactivation didn’t pass without controversy, or - unusual in an infamously orderly nation - without protest. A reactor at the Ohi nuclear power plant was reactivated on Sunday, the first power plant to go back online since the nation closed all its reactors in the wake of the Fukushima crisis over a year ago. Follow weekend, Japan re-entered the nuclear age.
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