Plan to Restart World’s Biggest Nuclear Plant Sparks Fukushima FearsWood Group Suitor Sidara Says Latest 230-Pence Proposal Is FinalArgentina Faces Natural Gas Crunch With Colder Winter Setting InHow One of the Most Revered Climate Groups Descended Into ChaosEgypt Raises Subsidized Bread Price for First Time in DecadesThe Daily Chase: GameStop shares popping againRetail sales climb 0.
Oda: So KK stands for Kashiwazaki Kariwa, and it's named after the two cities that it straddles over. And it has seven nuclear reactors and it's also the world's biggest nuclear power plant with 8.2 gigawatt capacity. If KK ran smoothly without any problems, at a very conservative maintenance schedule, it would produce enough power for roughly 13 million households in Japan.
Oda: I mean Kashiwazaki Kariwa is incredibly symbolic. It's symbolic in a sense that it's the last nuclear power plant operated by Tepco, the company responsible for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi disaster. And if this one were to be able to restart, I think the Japanese government sees it as a positive thing that boosts sentiment to adopt more nuclear power use. So, I think the government really is looking at it as a critical piece of the puzzle.
Ha: With that goal, Japan boasted 54 nuclear reactors throughout the country in 2011 – among the most globally – and made nuclear energy a strategic priority. And it worked. At one point, nuclear was about a third of Japan's power mix. Until Fukushima. BTV John Brinsley: An evacuation was ordered less than an hour ago for residents that live within about 2 kilometers of a reactor in the prefecture of Fukushima.
Oda: He thought that Japan has all these nuclear reactors sitting idle in the country. All of that capacity that’s wasted, that's sitting there, has potential to lower carbon emissions from coal and gas plants. But it's just, the restart takes such a long time and that it just remains there collecting dust.
Oda: The invasion of Ukraine really had a big impact.
Oda: Yeah. It's an incredibly complicated and long-winded process. So, basically Japanese utilities have to submit a plan to the nation's regulator and that's submitted to the nuclear regulation authority and they check whether it matches the new framework that came into place after the Fukushima disaster. Once that's approved, it goes back to the utility to conduct the necessary safety construction work at the power plant.