Tohoku Electric Power resumed operations on Tuesday of the 825-megawatt (MW) No.2 reactor at its Onagawa nuclear plant in northern Japan, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, an official said. company spokesperson.
The plant operates boiling water reactors (BWR), the same as in Fukushima, and was the closest nuclear station to the epicenter of the magnitude 9 earthquake in 2011. It is the first nuclear power reactor in eastern Japan to restart since then.
The long-delayed restart brings Japan’s number of operational reactors to 13, with a combined capacity of 12,433 MW.
As Chugoku Electric Power 9504.T prepares to restart the 820 MW No. 2 reactor at its Shimane nuclear plant in western Japan later this year, the country’s demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to fall in the next year.
Increased operation of nuclear power plants is also expected to help Japan meet growing energy demand from semiconductor plants and data centers that support artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The government expects power production to grow to 1.35 trillion to 1.5 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) by 2050, up from the 1 trillion kWh projected for the current decade, as Japan installs more data centers , chip factories and other energy-consuming businesses.
For Tohoku Electric, the Onagawa restart required a total investment of 570 billion yen ($3.72 billion) in safety measures to meet stricter rules adopted after the Fukushima disaster.
This content was originally published in Japan reactivates nuclear reactor near Fukushima after 13 years on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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