The Japanese region of Niigata is expected to endorse a decision to restart the world's largest nuclear power plant on Monday, a watershed moment in the country's pivot back to nuclear since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220 km (136 miles) northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

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[–] 50 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Easy for me to say because we don't have Nuclear here but... probably the right choice.

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  • [–] 41 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    I live not far from Fukushima (though I moved here about a decade after the disaster) and I agree. We have a huge affordability crisis going on with inflation/stagflation. Taking the nuclear plants offline caused reliance on fossil fuels, a lot of which were imported (including from Russia) and all that new cost had to be borne by someone which of course ended up being the consumers.

    In an ideal world, we'd have more renewables and storage, but we're not there yet. Being mostly mountainous, at the boundary of 3 tectonic plates, and having plenty of natural disasters also doesn't help.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    The day earthquakes can get harnessed for energy

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Where does the uranium get imported from?

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    tbf, a nuclear power plant in a tsunami prone region is a bad idea.

    I think nuclear energy is the way to go. at least use it to get rid of fossil fuel dependency, then we can continue to expand other renewables.

    doing this is just calling for another Godzilla attack.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    a nuclear power plant in a tsunami prone region is a bad idea.

    Not if the facility is built to deal with those outcomes, like tsunami and earthquakes. Fukushima design was criticized when built for ignoring safety in designs to save money.

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  • [+] -22 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Nuke bros are insufferable. There has been such an aggressive astroturfing campaign to prop up nuclear power, and it’s always the same tired (mostly outdated and inaccurate) talking points. It’s way too expensive, takes too long to build and renewables make way more sense. The main reason why nuclear power is being pushed so hard again is the unsustainable proliferation of data centres for AI, but no matter how much production you create, it will never be enough.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago

    There is nothing wrong with nuclear energy. The problem is we haven't invested in making smaller, cheaper reactors. The cost runaway of nuclear reactors and nuclear waste disposal are the biggest problems with it. We need to be able to spin up a reactor for the cost of a solar field, but we still are using 1960s technology in our current reactors with little to no advancement.

    Solar doesn't work during the evening hours without battery storage that we don't have. Wind depends on.....well....the wind. Tidal is consistently OK, but situational in location. Same for geothermal.

    Nuclear has the advantage of being a consistent, steady output all the time and can be put pretty much everywhere. Given the choice between Natural Gas fired plants to make up deficits and Nuclear, I'll choose Nukes every time.

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