Amman Today
publish date 2026-02-06 22:17:00
Amman – Japan will restart the world’s largest nuclear power plant next week after an alarm malfunction led to its restart being suspended for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Takeyuki Inagaki, director of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said in a press conference on Friday that the reactor is planned to “be put into operation on February 9.”
The announcement came after the Tokyo Electric Power Company restarted the reactor on January 21, before shutting it down again the next day after an alarm sounded from the monitoring system.
Inagaki said that the alarm, due to an error in its settings, detected slight changes in the electrical current in one of the cables, even though they were within a range considered safe.
He pointed out that the company has now changed the alarm settings and it is now possible to operate the reactor safely.
He stated that commercial operation of the station will begin on or after March 18, following another comprehensive inspection process.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is the largest nuclear plant in the world in terms of potential production capacity, although only one reactor out of seven will be restarted.
The plant has been out of service since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that led to a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011.
Japan seeks to revive the use of atomic energy to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and meet the growing energy needs of artificial intelligence.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the first TEPCO-operated unit to return to operation since 2011. The company also operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which is now out of service.
Residents of the area surrounding the station are divided regarding its restart, with nearly 60 percent of them opposing it while 37 percent support it, according to a poll conducted by Niigata Prefecture in September.
In January, seven groups opposing its restart submitted a petition signed by nearly 40,000 people to TEPCO and the Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stating that the plant was built on an active seismic fault zone, reminiscent of a strong earthquake that struck it in 2007.
AFP
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World News
Source 1 : https://www.ammonnews.net/article/978302
Source 2 : ألدستور
