Business & Economics
Niigata Assembly Green-Lights Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Restart, TEPCO’s First Post-Fukushima Reactivation
On 22 Dec 2025 a confidence vote in Governor Hideyo Hanazumi removed the last local-consent barrier, allowing TEPCO to fire up Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6—idle since 2011—from 20 Jan 2026.
Focusing Facts
- The 8.2 GW plant’s Unit 6 (1.36 GW) is scheduled for a soft-launch restart on 20 Jan 2026, with commercial operations targeted by March.
- TEPCO committed ¥100 billion (≈US$960 m) over 10 years for Niigata economic and safety projects as part of restart conditions.
- Only 14 of Japan’s 33 operable reactors have restarted since 2011; Kashiwazaki-Kariwa would lift Tokyo-area supply by an estimated 2 %.
Context
Japan’s U-turn echoes the U.S. post-Three Mile Island arc (1979 accident, first new plant restart not until Watts Bar-1 in 1996): public fear freezes nuclear fleets, then decades-later energy crunch thaws them. Today’s trigger is soaring LNG import bills and an AI-driven demand spike, spotlighting the structural risk of a resource-poor island nation that imports 85 % of its energy. The vote also tests a broader global drift back toward fission—France’s 2023 SMR push, Britain’s Sizewell C financing—as decarbonisation deadlines tighten and renewables still wrestle with intermittency. Yet it revives the perennial question of institutional memory: can a utility disgraced in 2011 sustain a “safety culture” for the half-century lifespan of these reactors and the 10-millennium stewardship of their waste? If Kashiwazaki-Kariwa operates safely, historians in 2125 may mark this week as the hinge when post-Fukushima paralysis gave way to a second nuclear age; a mishap, conversely, would cement public rejection for another generation.
Perspectives
Asian business-focused media
e.g., The Straits Times, BusinessWorld — Frame the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa restart as a pivotal milestone that will bolster Japan’s energy security, cut bills and help decarbonisation, presenting the project largely as a rational economic necessity. Business desks prioritise growth and energy market stability, so articles tend to foreground government and corporate talking-points while skating over lingering safety controversies and public mistrust highlighted only in passing.
Western centrist/liberal outlets
e.g., The Independent, Australian Broadcasting Corporation — Stress the depth of local opposition, trauma from Fukushima and doubts about TEPCO’s competence, casting the restart as a contentious gamble that splits communities. In amplifying protest voices and past disasters, coverage can under-play Japan’s energy-supply dilemmas, appealing to audiences that are historically more sceptical of nuclear power.
Technology & engineering news sites
e.g., Wonderful Engineering, IVCPOST — Highlight the plant’s record-breaking capacity and extensive technical upgrades as evidence that nuclear technology can be safely revived to meet future power demand. Reliant on company press material and engineering metrics, the narrative may gloss over social consent issues and treat safety as a solved technical problem rather than a political one.