The world's biggest nuclear power plant was restarted Wednesday for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, its Japanese operator said, despite persistent safety concerns among residents.
The plant was "started at 19:02" (1002 GMT), Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spokesman Tatsuya Matoba told AFP of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture.
The regional governor approved the resumption last month, although public opinion remains sharply divided.
On Tuesday, a few dozen protesters -- mostly elderly -- braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate in the snow near the plant's entrance, whose buildings line the Sea of Japan coast."It's Tokyo's electricity that is produced in Kashiwazaki, so why should the people here be put at risk? That makes no sense," Yumiko Abe, a 73-year-old resident, told AFP.
Around 60 percent of residents oppose the restart, while 37 percent support it, according to a survey conducted in September.TEPCO said Wednesday it would "proceed with careful verification of each plant facility's integrity" and address any issues appropriately and transparently.Japan is the world's fifth-largest single-country emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the United States, India and Russia, and is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels.
Nearly 70 percent of its electricity in 2023 came from coal, gas and oil -- a share Tokyo wants to slash to 30-40 percent over the next 15 years as it expands renewable energy and nuclear power.
Under a plan approved by the government in February, nuclear power will account for around a fifth of Japan's energy supply by 2040 -- up from around 8.5 percent in the fiscal year 2023-24.
Meanwhile Japan still faces the daunting task of decommissioning the Fukushima plant, a project expected to take decades.