Japan lifts ban on world’s largest nuclear facility

Japan has lifted an operational ban on Tokyo Electric Power’s 8.2-GW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear facility, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The plant has been offline since 2012 following the Fukushima disaster the year before that saw Japan shut down all nuclear facilities.

The ban was imposed in 2021 by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) due to a failure to protect nuclear materials and staff management difficulties.

The NRA lifted the ban due to improvements in the facility’s safety management system.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility requires consent of the local governments of Niigata prefecture, Kashiwazaki city and Kariwa village where it is located to be put back on line.

The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan has predicted that Japan’s LNG imports will drop to 58.5 million tonnes in the 2024/25 financial year from around 64 million tonnes in the 2023/24 financial year due to the recommissioning of local nuclear power plants.