Japan took the final step to allow the restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant on Monday as the region of Niigata voted to resume operations, a watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220km (136 miles) northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Since then, Japan has restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, as it tries to wean itself off imported fossil fuels.
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Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which ran the doomed Fukushima plant.
On Monday, Niigata prefecture’s assembly passed a vote of confidence on Niigata Governor Hideyo Hanazumi, who backed the restart last month, effectively allowing the plant to begin operations again.
While lawmakers voted in support of Hanazumi, the assembly session, the last for the year, exposed the community’s divisions over the restart, despite new jobs and potentially lower electricity bills.