Three years after Fukushima, Japan nuclear plant set for restart

A town in southwest Japan became the first to approve the restart of a nuclear power station on Tuesday, a step forward in Japan’s fraught process of reviving an industry stalled by the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011. Satsumasendai, a town of 100,000 that hosts the two-reactor Kyushu Electric Power Co plant, is 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo and has long relied on the Sendai plant for government subsidies and jobs. They are Japan’s first reactors to receive clearance to restart under new rules imposed since Fukushima, but are unlikely to get going until next year as Kyushu Electric still needs to pass operational safety checks.

Will this create a backlash? I imagine it will. Most people will see the government more or less ramming this through against popular opinion.

Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo

All 48 of the country’s nuclear reactors were gradually taken offline following Fukushima, the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. An earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi plant, sparking triple nuclear meltdowns, forcing more than 160,000 residents to flee from nearby towns and contaminating water, food and air. Japan has been forced to import expensive fossil fuels to replace atomic power, which previously supplied around 30 percent of the country’s electricity.

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