TOKYO: Japan switched on the world’s biggest nuclear power plant again on Monday, its operator said, after an earlier attempt was quickly suspended due to a minor glitch.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in the Niigata region restarted at 2:00 p.m. (0500 GMT), the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said in a statement.
A glitch with an alarm in January forced the suspension of its first restart since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The facility had been offline since Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown.
But now Japan is turning to atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.
Conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who pulled off a thumping election victory on Sunday, has promoted nuclear power to energise the Asian economic giant.
TEPCO initially moved to start one of seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on January 21 but shut it off the following day after an alarm from the monitoring system sounded.
The alarm had picked up slight changes to the electrical current in one cable even though these were still within a range considered safe, TEPCO officials told a press conference last week.
The firm has changed the alarm’s settings as the reactor is safe to operate.
The commercial operation will commence on or after March 18 after another comprehensive inspection, according to TEPCO officials.
Japan restarts world’s biggest nuclear plant again
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Japan restarts world’s biggest nuclear plant again
- The facility had been offline since Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown
Ukraine’s Zelensky says allies to provide new energy and military aid within 10 days
- Kyiv is aiming to rally support among partners as it struggles to fend off Russian battlefield advances and air attacks
KYIV: Ukraine has agreed new energy and military support packages with European allies ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday.
Kyiv is aiming to rally support among partners as it struggles to fend off Russian battlefield advances and air attacks on its energy system while under US pressure to negotiate peace.
“In Munich, we agreed with the leaders of the Berlin Format on specific packages of energy and military aid for Ukraine by February 24,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Zelensky said on Friday after a meeting of the so-called Berlin Format of about a dozen European leaders in Munich that he had hoped for new support, including air-defense missiles.
“I am grateful to our partners for their readiness to help, and we count on all deliveries arriving promptly,” he added.
Russian attacks on major cities such as Kyiv have battered Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, plunging millions of residents into power outages of varying periods in freezing cold weather.
Zelensky added that Russia had launched around 1,300 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine over the past week alone.
